


Iron and Ember

by darkbluebox



Series: Avatar: The Foxhole Legends [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Avatar Neil, Bending (Avatar), Childhood Trauma, Earthbender Andrew, Fanart, Firebender Kevin, Found Family, Kidnapping, M/M, Medium Burn, Saving the World, Sexual Content, Torture, gratuitous kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24949477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkbluebox/pseuds/darkbluebox
Summary: Prompt: "AU where Neil is the Avatar who was born as a firebender."“Feel this?” Andrew digs two fingers into the dip of Neil’s neck, tapping his pulse-point in time with the roar of Neil’s blood. “I can. I can feel every tremor that passes through the earth. I can feel your every footstep, your every flinch, every tap of your rabbity little heart. I know when I’m being snuck up on, and I know when I’m being lied to. You would be wise to avoid both from here onwards.” The rhythm of Andrew’s tapping speeds up to match pace with Neil’s quickening pulse as Andrew’s words rip the ground from beneath him. Andrew’s lips twitch cruelly at the sight of Neil’s expression. He leans in, shifting his hand to wrap it around Neil’s throat. “Want to hear my theory?” Andrew’s gaze is intent, the pressure of his hand light, but twitching with underlying threat. “You’re a firebender.”
Relationships: Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Kevin Day & Neil Josten, Matt Boyd/Danielle "Dan" Wilds, Neil Josten & Jean Moreau, Neil Josten & The Foxes (All For The Game), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: Avatar: The Foxhole Legends [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902337
Comments: 348
Kudos: 688





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is officially the wildest I have ever gone over a prompt. This fic will be about 30k words in total and should update weekly (possibly more often if I get good feedback!).
> 
> This is a short prologue to start off with - first full-length chapter coming soon.
> 
> Prologue content warnings: injuries, domestic abuse, child abuse, violence.

The sting of Nathaniel’s latest burn has faded to a dull yet persistent scratch, hissing at every movement of his shoulder despite the layers of bandaging and balm. The court officials avert their eyes as they pass him, arms overflowing with the paperwork of the war machine which spares them no time for little boys who can’t keep their firebending in check. Few still take his parents’ excuses at face value – that point passed six or seven “incidents” ago. Those who have made a connection between the Butcher’s volatile temperament and his son’s ever-evolving array of burns are not foolish enough to direct their accusations towards righthand man of the Fire Lord himself.

It is rare for Nathaniel to be left unattended in the inner courtyard, which is usually reserved for liaisons between high-ranking diplomats and generals. Today is not a usual day; the talks his father is holding with the Fire Lord concern Nathaniel directly. If all goes to plan, he will be sent to the Fire Nation’s most exclusive military school, the Raven Academy, where he will train with the future admirals and councilmen of the empire. Nathaniel doesn’t have much of an opinion on the subject beyond relief at escaping his father’s fiery temperament.

Failure to qualify for the Academy is not an option for the Butcher’s only son, and the Academy only accepts firebenders for students. As the years dragged Nathaniel closer to adolescence with no sign of bending abilities, his mother’s panic grew, and his father’s patience faded. Lola spent several fruitless months terrifying Nathaniel with crackling demonstrations which left Nathaniel’s skin raw and red. It was only after a weekend trip to Ember island, during which Nathaniel and his mother sat on the beach toying with a smouldering campfire until sunrise, that Nathaniel succeeded in summoning flickering sparks to his fingers for the first time. His father sent a messenger hawk to the capital to schedule his assessment as soon as they were home.

He stands before the central fountain, letting his mind fall into a deep, cooling blank carried away by the ripple of the water. Nathaniel’s assessment had been a grilling affair, watched by his mother (white-knuckled), father (stern-faced), the head of the Raven Academy, and a dozen other members of the Fire Lord’s inner circle that Nathaniel did not care to put names to. Two of the Academy’s current students, each marked with a tattoo denoting their place at the top of the Raven hierarchy, each watching his movements with a kind of hunger that Nathaniel would rather forget. The few moves Nathaniel knows are sloppy and self-taught, but he didn’t need to display expertise. Just potential. He gave them everything he had; all he can do now is await the verdict which will arrive at any moment.

Nathaniel hates firebending as much as he loves it. He loves the passion, the energy exploding through him, loves the heat and the intensity, but the power is as terrifying as it is invigorating. Nathaniel has spent too much time on the receiving end of that power, has seen the way his father’s face is transformed by it, as passion turns to fury and hatred and pure, white pain. Nathaniel hates to think of his own face doing the same.

The fear sends heat trickling through Nathaniel’s veins, and he banishes it the only way he knows how. His mother had been teaching him meditating techniques, ways of putting himself into a trance to keep the terror from setting his hands alight. He sways, matching his movement to the ripples of the fountain, his breathing falling into rhythm until he feels the pain and the panic dissolve like meltwater. The movement reminds him of the dancers that performed at the Fire Lord’s birthday celebrations, Southern Water Tribe captives forced to perform for the amusement of tipsy Fire Nation elites. His mother had watched the display with haunted, distant eyes. Nathaniel had been too afraid to ask whether she knew any of the prisoners from her homeland.

Still swaying, Nathaniel copies what he remembers of the movements, raising his arms and rolling them in time with his body. Faintly, he hears a gurgle of movement from the fountain at his back, but his eyes have slipped close of their own accord, so he doesn’t turn to look. A strangled noise snaps him from his trance.

He opens his eyes to see his mother standing before him, her eyes round and wild and burning with something between fear and fury. Nathaniel has seen that fear in his mother’s eyes many times, but never before has he been the source of it. He stops dead. The ball of water hovering over his head collapses, crashing down upon him.

“Mum, I don’t – I didn’t-!”

She slaps him so hard that Nathaniel swears he hears his teeth rattle. “You can’t – You didn’t - If anyone had seen-!”

The sound of approaching footsteps cuts her short, and she straightens, sliding seamlessly back into her public persona. “Silly boy fell in the fountain!” she says brightly, gesturing to Nathaniel’s plastered hair and sopping clothes. “I told him to leave those turtle-ducks alone. Can’t let this one out of my sight!”

The harried diplomat casts a disinterested eye over Nathaniel’s dripping form before turning back to his mother. “The master has accepted your proposition. Your son will be joining the Ravens from tomorrow.”

His mother nods, her lips pressing together into a tight smile as she grips Nathaniel’s shoulder. She has forgotten about Nathaniel’s burn, which feels like fire under the press of her fingers, but Nathaniel knows better than to react.

That night, his mother packs a bag, and they leave under cover of darkness. Nathaniel offers to create a flame to light their way, but his mother slaps his hands away.

“As long as I live,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “You will never firebend again. You hear me? No fire, no water, nothing. You are not a bender. Understand?”

He does. Nathaniel and his mother disappear into the dark, and they are not heard of again for a long, long time.


	2. Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What do you know of the Foxhole?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I asked twitter which fic to update next  
> It was a close vote but you can probably guess which won ;)
> 
> Content warnings: references to trauma, abuse, scars, violence, death.

Instead of bending, Neil takes to broadswords. They don’t call to him like bending does (it has been years, but still that itch persists beneath his skin, like something inside him is calling out to the building blocks of the universe and vice-versa) but they get the job done. He can defend himself in whichever territory he happens to be passing through without drawing attention to himself, and they fall in line with the last instructions his mother left him: don’t look back, don’t slow down, and don’t reveal your bending to anyone. Fortunately, the heavy blades are different enough from the knives his father made him practice with that the similarity is not too unsettling.

It’s his broadswords that save him when, halfway between Yu Dao and Omashu, Neil is accosted by a group of bandits who mistake him for an easy target. He isn’t thinking straight, hasn’t been for days, desperate to put as much distance between himself and the coast as possible. He burned his mother’s body there, hands trembling as he struck the rocks together to set the kindling alight. Even in the dead of night, on a deserted beach, without his mother to reprimand him, Neil could not bring himself to firebend. With the memory seared into his mind in sickly, molten shades of yellow, he stumbles blindly through the forest in search of anything, anywhere, as long as it is ahead of him and not behind.

What he finds is a fight he has no choice but to win. It is the first battle Neil has ever fought without his mother at his side, and his movements become vicious and desperate as he learns to protect his back in addition to his front. Two of the attackers are earthbenders, but Neil has more than enough practice against their style of combat; his quick jabs bypass the earthbenders’ brutally direct attacks. He dodges between the attackers until one of them accidently sends a block of stone barrelling towards a member of her own party. Neil is quick to take down the rest with a few heavy smacks from the blunt end of his sword, and soon he is surrounded by five unconscious bodies. He is picking through their pockets when a man in rust-red armour steps out from behind the trees.

For a moment, Neil thinks he is dreaming, or hallucinating, trapped either way in a nightmare of his own imagination. Kevin Day is standing in front of him with his arms crossed, lips pressed in a hard line. The last time Neil saw those sharp features, those piercing green eyes, he was demonstrating his firebending before the Fire Lord himself.

“Sloppy,” Kevin says. “But I see potential.”

The sound of his voice jars Neil back to the present. He turns and bolts, and smacks straight into a wall of dirt that had not been there moments ago. He falls on his back, clutching what he is sure must be a broken nose.

“For fuck’s sake, Andrew!” Kevin’s voice snaps over the ringing in his ears.

Neil gets up, tries to run again, but the ground vanishes like a carpet ripped from under his feet. Neil tumbles, pulls himself upright, and this time a block of dirt rises to ankle-hight just in time to trip him over again.

“You said you wanted to talk to him,” Andrew – presumably – replies. “I’m helping.”

“Oh, _now_ you decide to be helpful.”

Ignoring their bickering, Neil tries to pull himself up, but the ground is melting into a swirling quicksand beneath him. It sucks him down, thick and heavy like syrup, and it’s only when it reaches Neil’s torso that he gives up, hyperventilating as the mushy earth swirls around him. The two men standing over him remain indifferent to his distress.

“You’re going to scare him off!”

“So? He isn’t going anywhere now.” A blur of blonde leans into his frame of vision. “Take a deep breath. It would be unfortunate if you suffocated before Kevin has finished making his point.”

“Fuck you,” Neil gasps, his voice coming out raggedly from the pressure on his diaphragm. As he forces oxygen back into his lungs, the image sharpens. Andrew is so short that for a moment Neil mistakes him for a child, but his square jaw and bulky, muscular frame quickly correct the assumption. He wears simple green armour, although the Earth Kingdom insignia is nowhere on his uniform, and several sheaths swing from his belt. The ground squeezes Neil, reminding him that he is at Andrew’s mercy, but if the action causes Andrew any effort, there is no evidence of it in his expression. He studies Neil with guarded intent, arms folded across his chest.

“Please ignore him,” Kevin says as he joins Andrew in Neil’s field of vision. “My name is Kevin Day. I assume you’ve heard of me.”

Neil realises with relief that is almost painful that Kevin has not recognised him. It is not just Neil’s name that has changed over the years; when Neil lived in the Fire Nation, his hair was cut and scraped into a traditional high ponytail. Now it is loose and choppy, left to tumble down his face, hiding as much of it as possible. The scarring helps too; Romero did Neil a favour when he left Neil with the burned skin which twists across the side of Neil’s face, distorting his father’s features. The burn allows Neil to blend in seamlessly with the thousands of scarred refugees and veterans fleeing from one end of the world to the other.

The altercation which gave Neil that scar was the closest he and his mother came to being captured. Neil remembers only a blurry series of flashes and screams, a glimpse of Romero’s body, and the next thing he remembered was coming to in his mother’s arms on a cargo ship bound for the Southern Water Tribe. His mother had family there who agreed to shelter them, but after a day or so recovering from their injuries in Harbor City, it was time to move on from the dubious fold of Hatfords who were running the tribe from the shadows.

“It would be easier to protect you if you didn’t give every idiot with a sword your name,” Andrew interrupts. Kevin ignores him.

“You’re a skilled fighter,” he continues. “Not the Earth Military style, nor any local militia variations. Self-taught, if I had to guess. Unrefined, yet effective.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Neil grunts.

“What do you know of the Foxhole?”

Neil stills. He has heard of the Foxhole – every waif and stray who has spent more than a day on the road has heard of the Foxhole. A halfway house, a fortified encampment on the western coast of the Earth Kingdom that refuses to submit to the Fire Nation occupation. The location is furtively guarded, but any traveller wishing to escape the Fire Nation’s ire can shelter there for a while should they succeed in finding it. Neil can’t decide if the Foxhole’s existence is foolhardy or heroic; either way, it is only a matter of time before the occupying forces grow tired of the troublesome hideaway and blast it to pieces. He never expected to find Kevin, who vanished from the Fire Nation’s ranks under mysterious circumstances, among their doomed assortment of rebels and ruffians. The mottled, melted skin weaving across the exposed skin of Kevin’s arm leaves Neil with a few ideas as to the circumstances under which he left his adoptive family.

“He knows a lot,” Andrew answers on Neil’s behalf, “Judging by that reaction.”

Neil isn’t aware of having reacted at all; he wonders if Andrew can feel Neil’s body tensing in his earthy grip.

“We need skilled fighters,” Kevin says. “Join us.”

Neil stares. “You’re insane.”

A muscle in Andrew’s jaw twitches. It takes a moment for Neil to recognise the amusement in his stony features. Kevin’s lip curls, but Neil cuts him off before he can object.

“You don’t know anything about me. Who says I want to join a revolution?”

“You’re running around in the wilderness in the dead of night. Nobody who’s on the right side of Fire Nation rule would run the risk of being jumped out here.”

“Maybe I’m the one doing the jumping.”

Kevin casts a critical eye over the unconscious bodies surrounding them. “You are no common criminal.”

“Who says I won’t sell you out?”

Kevin nudges one of the bodies, eliciting a faint moan. “All unconscious. No deaths, no serious injuries. You didn’t make it easy on yourself. All signs of moral fibre.”

“Or stupidity,” Andrew adds, “so he’ll fit right in.”

“Stay the night with us, make up your mind in the morning. You have nothing to lose.”

“Unless you decide to cause trouble.” A wolfish smile spreads slowly across Andrew’s features. “Then I’m sure we’ll find _something_ you have left to lose.”

Neil twitches involuntarily. Andrew says the word _something_ less like he is thinking of possessions and more like he is thinking of body parts.

The quicksand shifts in time with Neil’s sigh of resignation. He lets himself be pulled in.

The Foxes, as they call themselves, barely cast a second look Neil’s way as he stumbles after Andrew and Kevin through the gates of their encampment. They will be used to hosting the occasional refugee hiding from Fire Nation eyes, and Neil’s burned skin and closed-off expression do nothing to dissuade the backstory they are surely fabricating for him. The Foxes’ curiosity grows, however, when Kevin declares him a worthy recruit. Their bare interest makes Neil’s scars itch.

Their leader, a grizzled Earth Kingdom fighter named Wymack, claps Neil’s shoulder and tells him that Kevin’s word is good enough for him. That night, Neil eats his first warm meal in months in the company of more people than he has spoken to in memory. The Foxes’ reactions to his presence range from warm to icy to non-existent, but nonetheless Neil knows from the moment he takes his place at the campfire that he cannot bring himself to leave them. Kevin meets his gaze across the flames, victory sitting heavy in the curl of his lips. Behind him, Andrew watches Neil as though he’s mentally pulling Neil limb from limb to examine the clockwork within.

Lonely, miserable, tired of running, Neil joins the Foxes. He can never reveal his past to them, but he can make himself useful to their cause. He dreams getting an open shot at his miserable father before the Fire Nation wipes Neil and the rest of the Foxes off the face of the earth. He takes more satisfaction from the idea than he should.

Dan, Wymack’s second-in-command, claps Neil’s shoulder and welcomes him to the fold. Not all the Foxes are so trusting, but Neil deflects their questions as best he can.

The Foxes live in a makeshift stone fort by the sea, surrounded by thick woodland on one side and a steep rocky outcrop on the other which makes them near-impervious to a sneak attack. After a quick evaluation of their defences, Neil estimates that Fire Nation forces could tear them apart in less than a day with a little effort, but the Foxes don’t pose enough of a threat to be worth chasing down. Yet. He would call Kevin insane for joining such a hopelessly lost cause, had he not heard the rumours concerning Kevin’s relationship to the Foxes’ commander.

Kevin has not been able to firebend since leaving the Fire Nation. When he and Riko were old enough to take command of their own squadron, a divide grew between the once-brothers. While rumours spread of Kevin’s superiority as a leader and warrior, Riko’s envy of his second-in-command grew. Meanwhile, Kevin, exposed for the first time to the harsh reality of Fire Nation imperialism, lost all faith in the Fire Lord’s occupational vision. Neil never asked whether he aired his disillusionment to Riko, or whether Riko simply decided to tear Kevin down before he could overtake him in rank. The result was the same either way; Kevin, burnt and broken, fled to the Earth Kingdom where he joined the Foxes in the hope of righting the wrongs committed by his homeland.

The vicious, red-brown scarring which winds across the left side of Kevin’s body is a constant reminder of his exile, stiffening Kevin’s movements as he learns to fight without his dominant hand, but it is not his injuries which have extinguished his flame. The problem is obvious to Neil, but he would rather eat lava than point it out. Firebending requires energy and passion, and the betrayal and loss Kevin suffered at the hands of his brother and his nation sapped him of the qualities entirely. Still, Neil can’t help but watch Kevin’s efforts, noting the stances and movements Kevin practices with fanatic dedication as he attempts to recapture his lost spark.

When Kevin isn’t attempting to regain his firebending he is pouring over every scroll and text the Foxes have grudgingly collected for him, desperate for any sign of the Avatar’s survival. Most of the world has long given up looking, convinced that the mythical saviour was no more than a fairy-tale made up to trick children into believing that there was a glimmer of hope, an end to the Fire Nation’s tyrannical reign. Neil doesn’t waste time lingering on futile fantasies like world peace; he can barely keep himself alive from one day to the next, let alone restore balance to the world.

Kevin, however, doesn’t believe that the Avatar is a myth, and for good reason. Unbeknownst to the general population, the highest-ranking Ravens are recruited to an elite taskforce dedicated to hunting and destroying the Avatar in each incarnation, and it was this taskforce that Riko and Kevin were placed in charge of. For generations, the Avatar had been quietly captured and eliminated by the taskforce before reaching adolescence, leading the rest of the world to gradually lose faith in the Avatar’s very existence. Kevin has been raised from infancy to continue the brutal tradition, but unlike his peers, he wants the Avatar alive. He believes with all his soul that the Avatar can save the world from his adoptive family’s tyranny.

Luckily, Kevin suspects nothing of Neil’s identity. Kevin makes it clear that he doesn’t think Neil capable of wielding a blunt fork, let alone the powers of the cosmos, and what Kevin doesn’t know can’t hurt him. Neil keeps his mouth shut, pointedly ignores the ancient scrolls Kevin pours himself over, and watches from afar as Kevin works through his firebending stances without success, both of them hungering for something they know they can’t have.

Neil isn’t careful enough in his observations.

“Enjoying the show?” The earth crunches and rocks around him, and suddenly there is a bench at his back that wasn’t there a moment ago. The level of craftmanship is well beyond anything Neil has seen from any other earthbender, but Andrew flops down on it like it’s no more than a convenience. He seems to take deliberate pleasure in using his bending for only the most mundane and juvenile tasks, preferring to wield his knives and stilettos in battle despite Kevin’s protests. Andrew slaps the space next to him. “Come on. Best seat in the house.”

“I’m not interested.” Neil turns away, but the ground beneath his feet resists, throwing him abruptly down at Andrew’s side.

“Oh, I beg to differ. You seem _very_ interested in Kevin’s bending. You’re like a scruffy little orphan hovering around the grocer’s stall in the hope that an apple will roll into your gutter.”

“Have a lot of experience with that?” Neil says waspishly. His understanding of Andrew’s childhood is vague at best, but he’s willing to bet it involved more than a few nights on the streets. Neil and Andrew have the same jagged edges, the same obstinate need to survive. Neil detests the similarities the same way he hates catching sight of his own reflection.

Andrew waves his comment away. “I’ve spent enough time with Kevin to recognise the frustration of a bender who can’t bend, and you match the profile down to the ground.” The accusation rips the ground from beneath him.

“I’m not a bender,” Neil says, voice strained. Andrew’s lips twitch cruelly at whatever expression Neil is making. He reaches out suddenly, digging two fingers into the dip of Neil’s neck.

“Feel this?” Andrew taps Neil’s pulse-point in time with the roar of his blood. “I can. I can feel every tremor that passes through the earth. I can feel your every footstep, your every flinch, every tap of your flighty little rabbit heart. I know when I’m being snuck up on, and I know when I’m being lied to. You would be wise to avoid both from here onwards.” The rhythm of Andrew’s tapping speeds up to match pace with Neil’s quickening pulse. He leans in, shifting his hand to wrap it around Neil’s throat. Across the pavilion, Kevin stops practicing. He calls something out to them, but the sound is lost to the roar of blood in Neil’s ears. “Want to hear my theory?” Andrew’s gaze is intent, the pressure of his hand light, but twitching with underlying threat. “You’re a firebender.”

Neil doesn’t answer, sure that his body has betrayed him already.

Andrew hums. “Runaway or spy?”

“I’m not a spy!” Neil chokes his indignation through the weight of Andrew’s hold. He forces himself to meet Andrew’s gaze, even as he can feel his skin growing warm, the heat of his firebending flooding his veins like a defensive reflex. He can tell by the way Andrew’s eyes rake over him that the earthbender can feel it too.

Andrew lets his hand drop away. “Interesting. And unexpectedly honest.” He turns to Kevin and waves him back to his exercises. “This isn’t a halfway house for firebenders evading conscription. If you want to stay under the Foxes’ protection, you have to make yourself useful.”

“Oh, like you?” Neil snarls. Andrew huffs, but doesn’t contest the point; despite Kevin’s best efforts, Andrew’s compliance with the wishes of the Foxes is erratic at best.

“Any fool can swing a blade,” Andrew continues as though Neil never spoke. “What Kevin needs is a focal point for his obsession. Someone to train and mould and pour all of that firebender know-how into. Bring back the passion, bring back the bending.”

“I can’t fix Kevin’s issues.”

“Who can? I’m not asking you to. Just practice with him.”

Bile rises in Neil’s throat. His mother’s voice snaps at him, the memory of her fists bruising into his skin. “I’m not a bender.”

Andrew leans in again. His smile is fierce and unyielding. “Not yet. But you will be, if you want to stay with us. If not, you may carry on your merry way. I’m willing to bet you can’t. I’ve spent enough time around Kevin to know what obsession looks like, too.”

Neil can only force himself to meet Andrew’s gaze for a matter of seconds before his will cracks and shatters. He nods once, sharply, trying to force out the conflicting whirlwind of snapping commands and agonised screams in his mind. His hands tremble in his lap as though struggling to contain all that they are capable of. He blinks away the flickering image of his father’s hands, clenching and unclenching his fists until they feel like his own again.

Unimpressed by Neil’s internal crisis, Andrew waves Kevin over. “Good news, Kevin. Our little lost boy is one of yours. Try not to do him any damage before dinner. You know how fussy the others can be, and Neil only has so much skin to melt.”

Neil watches understanding dawn on Kevin’s features, a strange wash of relief and joy that makes Neil’s stomach flip.

Despite his every instinct screaming against him, Neil forces himself to his feet. “Where do we begin?”

Kevin’s smile is a craggy, fierce thing, but the fire it lights in Neil burns stronger than anything he has known in years. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Together, they begin to train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone interested, I wrote [a post outlining which element each of the Foxes is in this fic and why.](https://darkblueboxs.tumblr.com/post/621075971824599041/atla-and-the-foxes) (warning: terrible puns) If you'd rather keep the mystery going until it comes up in-fic, comment your guesses for what everyone's elements will be and why!
> 
> [Also pls look at Vertigo's very funny meme about Kevin's Avatar hunting skills (or lack of)](https://twitter.com/dogintheboiler/status/1272533561103572998)


	3. Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t know me,” Neil says lowly.  
> “Then prove me wrong,” Andrew replies, mimicking Neil’s tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god long chapters were a terrible idea i've been doing nothing but editing this for three days straight
> 
> Content warnings: references to violence, abuse, death, and sexual assault. Description of injuries. Depiction of a panic attack. Mild sexual content.

It takes all of one day of Kevin’s tutelage to drive Neil to the brink of insanity.

His previous experiences with firebending – experiences which Kevin remains unaware of – were mostly fluke, spur-of-the-moment bursts of flame brought on by excitement or panic rather than intention. He relied on instinct to carry him through the Moriyama’s assessment because he had no formal training to fall back on. Now, he has neither, his intuition snuffed out by years on the run.

The expression Kevin makes when he sees Neil’s flailing, awkward attempts at bending would be funny were it directed at anyone else. Neil knows his movements are stiff and self-conscious, haunted by the eyes of his mother, his father, the Fire Lord himself. His unease isn’t helped by the prickly shame Kevin’s judgement burns into the back of his neck. When Neil fails to conjure so much a single flame, he isn’t sure which of them is more disappointed.

Kevin’s understanding of firebending is the polar opposite of Neil’s. Raised in the Raven Academy by the Fire Nation’s most prestigious masters, his movements are refined, sharpened by years of rigorous practice and relentless perfectionism. When he strikes a pose, he looks like he could have been carved from marble, perfectly proportioned as he slices through the air at viciously calculated angles. Neil bites down on his envy and does his best to follow Kevin’s lead, feeling like a clumsy toddler wobbling through his first steps.

As days pass without a flicker of fire managed between them, Neil wonders how long it will take Andrew’s patience with him to wear thin. He supervises Kevin and Neil from the luxurious shade of the awning, more interested in the clouds trailing from one horizon to the other than the fruitless sparring taking place before him. If there’s a deadline to Neil’s end of the bargain, Andrew doesn’t share it, but his presence weighs on Neil heavier than the midday sun.

“He’s an embarrassment,” Kevin complains to Andrew as they pause for their water break.

“I’m sitting right here!” Neil snaps. His indignation is ignored.

“Well, it’s too late to take him back to the pound,” says Andrew. “Have you considered leaving him by the roadside?”

Neil resists the urge to dump his water over one of their heads only because he cannot decide which of them deserves it more.

“Practice with us, Andrew,” Kevin pleads. “Maybe the variety will spur him on. A different kind of challenge.”

Neil can’t help but glance over his shoulder at the suggestion. Their first meeting and the interrogation aside, he has had little opportunity to study Andrew’s earthbending. The twitch of Andrew’s mouth tells Neil that his interest did not pass unnoticed.

“Nope,” Andrew says, popping the syllable. “You wanted the stray. He’s your problem to deal with.”

“I don’t see why you won’t-!” Kevin snaps, but Andrew bounces him from his seat with a stamp of his foot before he can finish the sentence. Kevin stumbles forwards before turning back to scowl at Andrew. They’re on the brink of retracing the well-worn path of a familiar argument, and Neil prepares to spend the next hour listening to Kevin’s usual string of complaints, but Kevin seems to think better of it. He returns to the centre of the pavilion where he strikes a meditative stance until the vein popping in his temple fades to its usual puce colour.

“Is this the part where you threaten me again?” Neil says as they watch Kevin breathe through his irritation.

“How dull. How predictable. I hope you’d expect better of me.” Andrew tilts his head towards Neil, eyes flicking over him. “This, on the other hand, is exactly what I expected of you.”

Somehow, that single dismissal rankles more than all of Kevin’s jabs, even more so when Neil realises how openly and unapologetically Andrew is manipulating him. Neil leans forward in kind, mirroring Andrew’s body language.

“You don’t know me,” Neil says lowly.

“Then prove me wrong,” Andrew replies, mimicking Neil’s tone.

Neil hates it, hates how well Andrew’s taunts work on him, hates the victorious twitch of Andrew’s lips as he senses the upwards tick of Neil’s pulse. Neil scrambles to his feet, unable to escape the pounding of his blood in his veins but desperate to put distance between himself and Andrew before he does something he’ll regret.

The next time Kevin throws an attack his way, Neil takes the itching heat Andrew forced into his veins and drives it into his fists. The quick, dancing burst of fire that shoots from his hands startles them both to a standstill. Neil stares down at his hands as though he has never seen them before, flexing his fingers as an electric tingle dances across his skin. He tries to remember if it always felt like this, or if the pain and the fear and the threats of his childhood drained the flickering thrum of excitement from his chest.

He isn’t sure how he expected Kevin to react: jubilation, triumph, relief. Instead, he nods one, sharply, and says, “Good. Now do it again.”

Neil would have accepted nothing less.

Within a matter of hours, he has perfected each of the beginner’s moves Kevin assigned him, and by the end of the day he can produce a wall of fire without a second thought. Kevin’s eyes dance with the reflection of Neil’s fire, and while his instructions remain as sharp and dismissive as ever, he comes alive at the sight of Neil’s success.

The next morning, the Foxes wake to the smell of singed grass as Kevin, in his enthusiasm to begin a new day of training, accidently leaves a trail of scorched footprints in his wake. The Foxes celebrate the return of Kevin’s firebending and the advent of Neil’s with typical alcohol-induced gusto, and the addition of sand buckets to any area they were likely to be practicing in. Neil’s continued success brings a new light to Kevin’s eyes, and before long, they are practicing side-by-side in perfect synchronisation as Kevin’s firebending blossoms and grows with Neil there to fan his flames.

The Foxes accept Neil’s firebending with few questions; Fire Nation refugees and runaways are not uncommon, and only Seth is unconvinced by Neil’s assurances of his allegiance to the Foxhole. Seth is another Fire Nation escapee, running from the death that would surely have come to him as the nonbending son of a high-ranking nobleman. He asks pointed questions about Neil’s family, eyes narrowing when Neil brushes them off. Only Allison, who similarly left the Fire Nation rather than take her place at the head of her family’s lucrative munitions empire, can persuade Seth to drop the matter.

It’s on a day that Neil unthinkingly lights a campfire with his bending that he realises how far he has come. The action would have been enough to earn a serious beating from his mother, but the Foxes have no such reaction, thankful for the warmth as the sunset leaches the heat from the earth. He watches them laugh and chatter in the orange glow, somehow an outsider and insider all at once. Only Andrew seems to notice Neil’s hesitance, hazel eyes turned amber in the firelight.

Their peaceful corner of the world won’t stay that way for long. Visitors to the Foxhole have spread the news that Kevin is officially a member of their ranks and firebending once again. Like a match dropped in oil, his stance against the family that raised him is setting the Fire Nation alight. The more members of his homeland rally around him, and the Foxes by extension, the more of a target they become. Sooner or later, the Moriyamas will seek to quash the source of the dissent, and Neil’s presence, once he is recognised as the son of the Butcher, will only put more of a target on their backs.

Die for the Foxes or leave them behind: the choice may have been easy once, but not anymore. His mother’s voice is a dim memory in the face of their warmth, their protection, their acceptance. Neil has forgotten how to let go.

As he grows more comfortable with his firebending, Neil’s fascination begins to overlap into the other elements. Renee’s circular, floating movements propel the air around her into miniature tornados, loose and relaxed compared to Kevin’s rigid firebending stances. The flow of Nicky and Matt’s waterbending, meanwhile, is the opposite of the blocky moves Neil is accustomed to.

Water, earth, air: for the sake of Neil’s survival, the other elements must remain forever beyond his reach, admired from a safe distance like the fireworks over Ember island. Neil takes the next best option, using his observations of the other bending styles to improve in his own domain, experimenting with twisting and rhythmic moves that make his fire flick and snap in surprisingly powerful ways. Kevin, eternally loyal to Fire Nation tradition if not the country itself, rolls his eyes but does not complain as long as Neil’s experiments continue to be effective.

There is one bender among the Foxes, however, who will not tolerate Neil’s obsession. Andrew seems to take a perverse joy in refusing to bend in Neil’s presence, but his taunting succeeds only in provoking Neil’s curiosity further.

It is no secret that Andrew prefers to practice in isolation out on the cliffs, and so, on a bright, windy day, Neil fights his way up to the rocky outcrop beyond the southern wall. The crash of waves far below mixes with the rumble of boulders smashing against each other, echoing down the path that Andrew’s routine has worn into the grass. As soon as Neil steps into view, however, the boulders drop to the ground. One tips over the cliff edge, bouncing off the cliff face as it tumbles towards the sea in a deafening series of rumbles and crashes.

Andrew glares at Neil from his perch on a cracked rock. He wasn’t lying about being snuck up on; Andrew is so sensitive to tremors in the earth that he can pick up on Neil’s footsteps well in advance of his arrival.

“Show me,” Neil says, plonking himself down beside Andrew. The earth around him is jagged and turfed up in the aftermath of what looks less like practice and more like a random bout of destruction.

“Pay me,” Andrew replies. “Preferably in booze.”

“You know I don’t have any.”

“Then we have nothing more to say to each other.”

“Ask me for something else.”

Weeks prior, such easy bartering would have been unthinkable. Since Andrew helped Neil regain his firebending, however, a strange accord has been struck between them. A man with a lie-detector built into his skin should be Neil’s worst nightmare, but Andrew never asks for more than Neil can give, and it’s all Neil can do to offer him the same courtesy in return. Unexpected and unasked for, their arrangement is nonetheless the closest Neil has ever come to genuine trust. It comes with a strange sense of stability, constant, unmoving, monolithic. Like Andrew.

Maybe that’s why Andrew’s earthbending fascinates Neil. Andrew’s style matches him down to the ground, brutal and forceful and unrelenting and unapologetic, and the few glimpses Neil has caught of it have only left him wanting more. For someone who has spent their life avoiding and evading confrontation, the grounded certainty of Andrew’s every movement is both alien and irresistible.

“What do you have to offer?” Andrew asks, careful, calculating.

Neil considers. “I’ve been cooperating moves from other elements into my firebending. Maybe there are firebending moves you could use in your earthbending. I could teach you them.”

“Yes, Kevin has mentioned your holistic approach to bending. Repeatedly.” Andrew flicks a pebble over the cliff edge with a wave of his hand. They listen as it skitters and tumbles down the cliff towards the sea. “Boring. Think of something else.”

Neil’s breath catches in his throat. He has little to offer, and what he does have could get him killed. “Secrets.”

“Now, that _is_ interesting. I knew you had it in you.” Andrew leans forward, tapping his fingers against Neil’s pulse point. This close, Neil can smell him, rough and earthy and green, like he spent the day rolling around in a field before dragging himself through a hedge backwards. Neil has never tried to earthbend in his life, but this close to Andrew, it’s like he can taste the sensation. Aborted movements twitch through his fingers as something deep within him calls out to the man before him, recognising something he has long been denying himself. Neil wants to learn this, to stand his ground, to wear Andrew’s strength like it’s his own.

He’s almost too wrapped up in his own thoughts to feel the continued weight of Andrew’s gaze. Neil isn’t sure what Andrew is searching for in him, but instead of the automatic recoil of panic he feels only a familiar, itching heat that hangs on the knife-edge between pleasure and pain.

Andrew’s hand slips away from Neil’s neck to tap the burned flesh of Neil’s cheek. “Tell me about this.”

Neil closes his eyes, his vision suddenly burning with red-white flashes of fury. There are still parts of his story that he won’t – can’t – share with Andrew, but the bare details won’t kill him.

“One of my father’s men caught up to me as I was crossing out of Fire Nation territory. My father wanted the honour of killing me himself, but the man could do what he wanted to me as long as I was still breathing when my father arrived to finish the job. He decided to make a few cosmetic adjustments.”

Andrew’s gaze darkens as though the earth of his soul has been pulled open to reveal a black pit below. “A few?”

They’re on their own on the small rocky outcrop, and Andrew would know the moment anyone approached, but still Neil can’t bring himself to remove his shirt out in the open. Instead, Neil takes Andrew’s hand and drags it below the hem, guiding it to the melted skin below. He presses Andrew’s palm over a distinctly hand-shaped burn on his abdomen and wonders if his skin feels as warm to Andrew as Andrew’s does to him. “Is this enough of a secret?”

Andrew’s fingers twitch against Neil’s skin. “Yes.” He is slow to remove his hand, his expression still that unreadable, black hollow.

Andrew creates an elevated platform and nudges Neil onto it so he can watch from safety as Andrew returns to his exercises. It’s unclear whether Andrew is trying to achieve anything from hurling chunks of earth from one side of the outcrop to the other or if he simply revels in the destruction. His skin soon turns slick with sweat, the ground a turfed-up mess of uprooted grass. Dispassionate in every other facet of his life, Andrew moves like the crack of boulders breaking apart is his life mission, hauling larger and larger rocks into the air until the only feature left untouched is Neil’s dais.

Satisfied with his destruction, Andrew sinks Neil’s platform back into the ground with a final stamp of his foot. Neil hands Andrew his water pouch and watches as he takes deep, steady gulps.

“Same time tomorrow?”

Andrew glares, tossing the empty pouch back into Neil’s arms. “If you’re still alive.”

Neil smiles.

Days pass, and routine develops. Neil meets Andrew outside his quarters as the sun is setting. While the other Foxes sleep or patrol the Foxhole’s ramparts, they head out to the relative privacy of the cliffs. Andrew asks a question, and Neil answers it. As payment, Andrew earthbends for Neil until the moon is high above them. Despite Andrew’s clear disdain for earthbending, Neil never grows bored of the nightly display. The shudder of Andrew’s body as he twists and thumps the world to his desire is a work of art.

“How did you get away?” Andrew asks on a cool, breezy night. Andrew’s questions until now have mostly been inane, and Neil was happy to answer them: if Andrew wanted to spend his efforts on Neil’s favourite Earth Kingdom city or his most hated Water Tribe delicacy, that was his prerogative. At first Neil believed it was Andrew’s way of antagonising him, but as time passed Neil started to wonder if it wasn’t simply Andrew’s way of getting to know him. Neil doesn’t point out that the secrets he pays for Andrew’s time are barely secrets; he doesn’t want to tempt Andrew to ask something harder to answer.

Unfortunately, tonight is the night Neil’s luck runs out.

“From?”

Andrew answers by gesturing to Neil’s scar.

Neil neatly removes ninety percent of the truth and replies, “I killed him.”

It isn’t a lie, but it’s barely the truth. Neil remembers fire, and pain, and screaming that was probably his own, and then he remembers a power seizing his body unlike any he has ever known. He remembers feeling nothing, and everything, and –

When he came back to himself, Romero was dead.

He lives in fear of tipping back into that untethered, empty place. The Avatar state. It was power unlike anything Neil had ever known, all-consuming and uncontrollable. He can’t bear to think of what would have happened had his mother not succeeded in snapping him out of it.

Andrew accepts the simple response without question. Neil watches him bend until heavy, dark clouds choke out the moonlight, leaving them with only the fire in Neil’s palm to see by. Andrew’s features are transformed in the orange glow, sharp-angled and golden-eyed.

For a moment, the heat flickering across Neil’s skin floods his vision with after-images of a dead man. He clenches his fists and the fire dies, plunging them into a thick blanket of night. A panicked breath shudders from Neil’s chest, but the hook of Andrew’s fingers in his collar pulls him back to himself.

“You’re here, Neil.” Andrew’s voice ghosts across his skin. “You’re safe.”

“I can’t see.” Neil’s hands shake. He wants to reach out, to ground himself with a hand hooked around Andrew’s wrist, but he refuses to risk crossing one of Andrew’s many shifting boundaries. 

“I can.” Andrew wraps his hand around the back of Neil’s neck, and for a moment Neil sees too, senses out the rise and fall of the planet wrapping around them.

“I’m not Neil.” He doesn’t know what makes the words spill from him, but the release feels like water blowing through a burst dam. “I’m nothing.”

“What were you before?”

_Wesninski, Hatford, Nathaniel, Avatar._ No answer is safe. “Abram,” Neil says. It’s an answer, but not to the question Andrew asked. Nobody has called him Abram in as long as he can remember; the syllables feel safe in Andrew’s care, his and his alone.

“Abram,” Andrew repeats, and the world rushes back into place. Neil breathes, unable to put words to what just passed between them but grateful all the same.

“Andrew,” Neil says, and it’s a question and an answer, repetition and response all rolled into one.

Mercifully, Andrew understands. Slowly, he tugs Neil in against him, his body a block of heat shielding Neil from the cool night air. He traces a thumb questioningly over Neil’s lips, twitching at the brush of Neil’s _yes_ against his skin.

Andrew’s lips find Neil’s, and his whole body burns.

Guided through the dark by the press and tug of Andrew’s hands, Neil follows him home to the Foxhole. In the bright, warm safety of the sentry torches, hands and lips still tingling, Neil plunges into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Weeks slip by. Neil continues to answer Andrew’s string of inconsequential questions, and even hands him snippets of truth unprompted – cities he passed through, battles won and lost, and eventually, the wasteland of his skin, bared to the mercy of the moonlight. Andrew explores Neil’s burns with gentle hands and shows Neil a few of his own in return.

“These don’t look like normal burns.” Neil smooths his fingers over the dark marks which wind across Andrew’s forearms, usually hidden by his armour.

Andrew’s eyes don’t leave his. “Ice can burn, too.”

“A waterbender?”

Andrew’s silence is answer enough. Neil nods, digests the information, but refuses to push for more than what Andrew has offered. Andrew’s fingers are cold as they press against his neck. “Your pulse is always so quick. Like a rabbit’s.”

“There’s a reason for that.” Neil raises his hand and – slowly, giving Andrew the chance to move away – he puts his fingers to Andrew’s pulse-point in return. After a moment, he’s almost convinced he can feel Andrew’s pulse the same way Andrew can feel his, rattling through the earth in time with his own. His breath, too, pulsing through the air, all around him, all-consuming. “Look who’s talking.”

Andrew’s eyes drop to Neil’s lips. “I hate you.”

They kiss. They train, fire and stone flashing through the air until the earth turns to lava beneath their feet. Then, as sunrise paints the sea a sparkling amber, they kiss again, and Andrew runs his hands over Neil’s bruised and broken skin, and for a moment, everything is perfect.

On the night of the full moon, Andrew does not train. When Neil knocks on the outer wall of his quarters, he pulls back the stone wall of his quarters with a stamp of his foot, looks Neil over, glances up at the sky, then tells him to fuck off. Neil accepts a night of much-needed rest without complaint.

The following month, Neil waits outside Andrew’s quarters the morning following the full moon with a ration of sweet buns in hand. Andrew glares at him but accepts the sugary snack regardless.

“So, you’re a werewolf?” Neil jokes while Andrew chews.

Andrew yanks the ground from beneath Neil’s feet, knocking him onto his ass. Neil laughs and follows him to the pavilion, where Kevin is waiting to begin another day of firebending.

A month later, on the third night of the full moon, Andrew hooks his fingers into Neil’s collar as the sun begins to sink in the sky, dragging him from the campfire circle before the other Foxes notice. Neil’s stomach lurches when he realises that Andrew is pulling him into his quarters, but the tense set of Andrew’s shoulders tells Neil that intimacy is the last thing on his mind.

With Neil’s consent, he pulls the walls back up around them, plunging them into darkness. Like they would out on the cliff face, they sit side-by-side and talk into the early hours of morning. Neil tells Andrew, minus a few key details, about the day his mother died at the hands of his father’s men. In return, without deviating from his usual flat tone, Andrew tells Neil about the bloodbender that used the powers brought to him by the full moon to hold Andrew down, frozen in place and unable to fight back.

Neil nods, takes a moment to crush down the fire crackling at his fingertips, and lets out a slow breath. It is too dark to see Andrew’s expression, but he is sure the man can feel the vengeful heat rolling off him.

They sleep on Andrew’s bed, back-to-back, separated only by the thin fabric of their shirts. When Andrew startles awake a little after daybreak, disorientated and distant, Neil leads Andrew’s hands to the scars on his cheek and torso, a silent promise in the dark: _this is me, you are safe._ Andrew presses Neil into the rough canvas bedding and kisses him until the heat of the sun is soaking through Andrew’s room, or maybe it’s Neil, warming the room like a one-man oven in his excitement, or maybe it’s both of them.

And Neil realises that, like a rock dropped off a cliff, he is bouncing and tumbling down a path he cannot come back from, doomed to crash into the cold ocean at the end but unable to reverse his path any more than he can reverse gravity.

Neil falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not strong enough to write slow burns ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	4. Harmony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The Foxes are too divided, too fractured into their own elements. They won’t agree to work together any more than they have to, but if you can persuade your lot to cooperate then I can talk the rest around.”
> 
> Andrew considers it. “I won’t do it for free.”
> 
> “Anything,” Neil promises, a little terrified by how easily the word slips from his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last normal-size chapter before shit absolutely hits the fan ((I'm,,, very excited)). I'll try to keep the updates regular moving forwards but I am not used to dropping 4-6k in one go so there's a chance I will drown in a swamp of editing-related delays. Pray for me 😭
> 
> Content warnings: physical displays of affection, references to psychological abuse, mild injury, death mention.

The stone battlements of the Foxes’ encampment bring with them a dangerously deceptive sense of security. Neil picks his way along the walkway between the parapets as the rising sun casts jagged up-and-down shadows in his path. From the south wall, he can see down to the narrow cove where Nicky and Matt are toying with the waves in slow, swinging movements. He watches as they work together to pull a wall of water into the air and freeze it, blocking the embankment from imaginary attackers, before letting the frozen shards crash back into the ocean. Within the Foxhole, Kevin is throwing fireballs at stick-figure targets, leaving them smouldering in a ring around him while Seth and Allison swipe and slice at each other, swords glinting as they catch the light.

East of the Foxhole, Dan is sculpting the land beyond the walls into deep trenches and spiked pillars under Wymack’s guidance. Andrew watches them, boredom etched deep in his features, but makes no move to aid Dan in her efforts. He catches Neil’s eye and gives him the finger, which Neil returns. Back within the fort’s walls, Renee meditates under a canvas awning, hair floating in a breeze around her as though no longer affected by gravity.

On the face of it, it seems logical to divide the Foxes by element, working in separate units to perfect their native fighting styles. Even for non-benders like Seth and Allison, their sparring style is still a closer match to Kevin’s bending than to anything else, and the Fire Nation refugees gravitate towards each other in training despite the open animosity flaring between them. However, standing on the battlement’s highest point and surrounded by his Foxes in every direction, Neil can’t help but question the logic. The Fire Nation has long relied on the discord between the other nations to maintain its position of power. If the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, and what remains of the Air Nomads could put their differences aside and band together, the Moriyama empire would crumble. Earth-shaking political alliances are well beyond Neil’s abilities, but the Foxes are not. If Neil can learn from the other elements to improve upon his own, then why can’t they?

Of course, this means getting the Foxes to work together, which isn’t on the same level of difficulty as building an alliance between worldly superpowers, but certainly comes close. Luckily, Neil knows exactly where to begin.

The steaming mulch of glowing lava hisses in the cool night air, casting a faint glow over Neil and Andrew as they sit on the cliff-edge, feet dangling over the side. Andrew stares down the white cliff-face as though fascinated by the loss of the ground beneath his feet. At first, Neil blamed Andrew’s fear of heights on natural earthbender instincts, but Andrew doesn’t seem to hold any deep, spiritual connection to his element in the way the others do. Unlike Neil, he sees his abilities as a convenience, not a lifeline. No, Andrew’s fear is born of logic, not instinct; as long as his feet are on the ground, he is in control. The possibility of falling is a constant threat of losing the protections he fought long and hard to build for himself.

Andrew has mentioned the years he spent bouncing between adoptive families in the Northern Water Tribe before he was recognised by Nicky’s father and returned to his family in the Earth Kingdom. Neil wonders if the subtle fear that tugs at Andrew from the top of the cliff face is related to the powerlessness he must have felt growing up on the Northern capital’s icy, earthless streets.

Since beginning to firebend, Neil has felt his connection to the element flicker and grow as he is drawn in like a moth to flame. He wonders if he would react the same to water or earth, if he ever had the chance to learn them, or if it his only his native element that can get under his skin like this. Air, however, he can’t imagine ever having any connection with – he has gathered from watching Renee that airbending is rooted in spirituality as much as it is physical action, which Neil cannot wrap his head around at all. He wonders all the same whether instinct would kick in if Andrew ever made good on his promise to throw them both over the cliff edge. Neil has never been much good at cushioning himself against life’s blows, but for Andrew, maybe, he could learn.

“I’d like to start bringing the others in on our joint practice,” says Neil. Sea-vultures caw in the distance, their nests built into the cliff face. The baby hatchlings that were fresh out of their eggs when Neil arrived are on the brink of adolescence, more making their first departures from their nests with each day. “I think that if we all try to learn from each other we’ll be stronger for it.”

“You are free to practice with whoever you want to,” says Andrew, which is neither a yes or a no.

“The Foxes are too divided, too fractured into their own elements. They won’t agree to work together any more than they have to, but if you can persuade your lot to cooperate then I can talk the rest around.”

Andrew considers it. “I won’t do it for free.”

“Anything,” Neil promises, a little terrified by how easily the word slips from his lips.

Andrew chews Neil’s answer over for a moment before nodding. If Andrew knows what he plans to ask for in return, he doesn’t share it. Instead, he pushes Neil down until his back hits the cooling earth and pins Neil’s hands over his head.

“Stay,” Andrew whispers. He leans in and presses burning kisses into Neil’s skin, and time dissolves into nothing.

It’s slow work, bringing the Foxes together, but the results surprise even Kevin. Dan and Matt are the quickest to get on board, combining Dan’s heavy, forceful movements and Matt’s gentle, rhythmic ones until earth is flowing and spinning around Dan’s head like a river while blocks of water smack into anyone close enough to garner Matt’s attention. Renee shows Allison and Seth her evasive spins and flips, which they slide seamlessly into their sparring, dodging strikes with light, sleek movements. Aaron, instead of working on his hand-to-hand, takes the opportunity to study some of Abby’s healing techniques; he may not be a waterbender, but is fascinated by her medicinal abilities all the same. Kevin, the most dubious of all the Foxes when it came to polluting his style with that of other elements, quickly relishes in the opportunity to school the other Foxes in his native style. True to his word, even Andrew follows his demonstrations, and tolerates Nicky’s excitement long enough to test his waterbending style on his own element.

Kevin catches up to Neil at the end of another long day of joint training, handing Neil a water pouch and scowling at him until he has finished it. “You may have been onto something,” he grudgingly admits, looking out over the resting Foxes, all too tired for even perfunctory bickering. “We can learn from each other after all.”

“Can I get that in writing?”

Kevin pops him in the back of the head, but his mind is clearly elsewhere. His next words shoot a lightning-bolt of panic through Neil’s chest. “This is why we need the Avatar.”

“What?” Neil’s blood is ice in his veins, but Kevin’s gaze is distant; in spite of all his research, he still suspects nothing. According to Kevin, the Fire Nation’s records indicate that the newest Avatar should have been born to one of the Water Tribes, and Neil is in no hurry to correct them.

“Bringing elements together, bringing communities together. This is what the Avatar is all about. All the elements, co-existing in harmony.” He takes the pouch back from Neil’s limp fingers and shakes it, confirming that Neil has finished. “If we can achieve all of this with a group of strays and runaways, imagine what we could achieve with the Avatar on our side.”

Neil lets out a hollow breath. “You can’t hold out hope forever that the Avatar is going to swoop in and save the day.”

“I know. I know…” Kevin trails off, watching as the sun sinks below the battlements. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

Neil chooses his next words carefully. “Right now, you have displaced Fire Nation citizens all over the world rallying behind you. The other nations are more hesitant because they see you as a disgruntled castoff trying to seize power for himself. You need to prove to them that you’re more than that. That it isn’t just the Fire Nation that you’re fighting for.”

Kevin’s eyes snap to Neil, and then to Wymack, who is helping Abby to pass out the evening’s rations, barking over the Foxes’ complaints that if they don’t want to eat the same meal for the third night running they can damn well head out and hunt dinner themselves.

Inter-element marriages were a common Fire Nation tactic for consolidating territorial gains, which is how Mary and Nathan’s partnership came about. This was decidedly not the case for Kayleigh Day, who simply returned from a tour of the Earth Kingdom with a baby and no offer of an explanation. When Neil confessed to Kevin that he had heard the rumours of his relation to the Earth Kingdom fighter, Kevin had quickly sworn him to secrecy. Split allegiances were not permitted within the Fire Nation’s walls, and so Kevin had long been forced to deny anything but his firebending heritage. An ocean away from the Moriyamas, Kevin’s only remaining excuse is his reluctance to place his father in further danger.

“You can unite the elements just as well as any Avatar,” Neil continues, hating the taste of the word _Avatar_ in his mouth. “It’s time to take a stand.”

“There will be consequences,” Kevin says shakily. “Declaring myself a citizen of the Fire Nation _and_ the Earth Kingdom would be a direct snub to the Moriyama’s supposed superiority. They wouldn’t stand for it. _Riko_ wouldn’t stand for it…”

“Andrew promised he would protect you from Riko,” Neil replies sharply. “You shouldn’t have accepted his protection if you didn’t believe he would deliver on it.”

“And everyone else?” Kevin looks back to the Foxes. “You don’t come from Fire Nation nobility, Neil. You don’t understand how these people work. Riko, the Moriyamas, they won’t just come for me. They’ll come for all of us.”

Neil clenches his jaw. Just because Kevin doesn’t know that Neil has more experience with Fire Nation nobility than he’ll ever admit to doesn’t make Neil want to punch him any less. He may be preparing to end the war in the grave his father surely dug for him, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the Foxes have to go the same way. “Leave the others to me. I’ll look after them.”

Kevin looks doubtful, but when he meets Neil’s eyes he sees something in his expression that flushes the doubt from his body. He closes his eyes and concedes with a short nod. “We’re going to need a lot more training.”

“What else is new?” Neil says, which earns him a nudge and a brief, albeit strained, smile.

The sun sinking and the Foxes back in their dens, Kevin follows his father up onto the ramparts to take the first watch with him.

Having spent the day training with the rest of the Foxes, Neil doesn’t expect Andrew to want to train with him that night. Nonetheless, Andrew is waiting for him at their usual spot, and as usual, Neil pays him in a truth; a story of a weekend he and his mother spent on Ember Island. He tells Andrew about the night they spent building a log fire on the beach with their bare hands and the overpriced theatre production his mother bought them tickets to. He leaves out the part where his mother slipped away during the interval to speak to a man with a familiar jawline and dark, blue eyes that stood out despite his burnt red garb.

“Kevin is learning to stand up for himself,” Neil says at the end of a long night of training. “I think it’s time I did the same.”

“You are full of surprises.”

“You gave me the protection of the Foxes in exchange for my helping Kevin, but Kevin doesn’t need my help anymore. You don’t have to protect me any longer.”

“That’s not how the deal works.” Andrew picks up a pebble and tosses it from hand to hand as though deciding whether or not to throw it over the cliff edge.

“Then I’m letting you off the hook. Let me stand on my own feet.”

“Why?” Andrew tosses the pebble up; Neil catches it before it lands.

“The day I let Kevin show more spine than me is the day I die.”

It’s another half-truth, and Neil can tell from Andrew’s heavy gaze that he has identified it as such. Instead of pushing, however, he accepts Neil’s answer on trust alone. Neil wonders how far Andrew would take Neil’s word, how two of the least trusting people on the planet managed to build this foundation of faith to lean upon. At last, Andrew takes the pebble back from Neil and flicks it over the edge, letting it fall for a few meters before pulling it back into his palm. “Fine. Your back is yours again. Don’t come crying to me when someone melts your face off.”

“Thank you.” Neil stretches until his back pops. “One more round, or bed?”

Andrew prods a finger into the tender flesh around Neil’s eye where a bruise is forming. After a full day of training and half the night too, Neil can no longer remember how he got it. “Bed, junkie.”

Neil lets Andrew hook his fingers in the collar of his shirt and follows as he pulls the pair of them back to his quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kevin, having progressed from the occasional sip of clown juice to full-on chugging: man I wish the avatar was here  
> Neil: 🎵Don't be suspicious🎵 don't be suspicious🎵
> 
> Not to give anything away about the next chapter but it's gonna be... Electrifying 😈


	5. Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Kevin,” says Riko Moriyama, dripping with false sincerity. “It’s time to come home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's vibe: "Things We Lost in the Fire" by Bastille, because the lyrics are too perfect.   
> I was the match and you were the rock, maybe we started this fire...
> 
> Content warnings: Violence, injuries, references to abuse, (canonical) death.

Firebenders are more powerful during the day, which is why none of the Foxes expect to be attacked at night. But it is at night that they come, the Fire Nation fleet painting the horizon orange well in advance of its arrival, dozens of ship funnels belching black fumes that leave a thick, chemical aftertaste in Neil’s mouth. The Foxhole stands before the line of approaching steamships like a house of cards before a hurricane, but the Foxes show no fear as they rush to their battle stations.

The Foxes’ waterbenders head up the defence of the cove, turning the waves into vast glaciers designed to halt ships in their tracks. However, it doesn’t take the firebenders long to melt their way through the obstacles, and soon Wymack directs Andrew and Dan up to the cliffs where they rain boulders upon the approaching ships like cannonballs. It is only when the surviving vessels reach the shoreline that the Foxes discover that the attack is double-pronged. Kevin and Neil dash for the other side of the camp to divert the forest fire licking its way towards their defences.

By the time they reach the edge of the forest, the air is heavy with smoke. The fire billows around them like the sails of a ship, the heat plastering Neil’s skin with the kind of stinging sensation that comes in the aftermath of a bad burn. The firebenders that set the fire are nowhere in sight, but as Kevin and Neil drive forwards the wall of fire seems to split open and wrap around them. As soon as their getaway route snaps shut in a burst of flame, Neil knows that they’ve made a terrible mistake. Kevin and Neil have been drawn away from the rest of the Foxes with no plan and no backup. If Neil had been trying to lead the camp’s firebenders into a trap, this is exactly how he would have done it.

The fire raging around them is tinged a wild blue, and Kevin and Neil’s combined efforts are unable to tame it. Animals scatter and retreat from the overwhelming heat while trees crash to the forest floor, and it’s all they can do to hold the flames back. The fire resists them as though predicting their moves; Neil has never seen anything like it.

Neil and Kevin are soon staggering with exhaustion, their moves becoming increasingly sloppy as sweat beads on their brows. Neil heaves on the smoke-choked air, his eyes watering painfully as flakes of ash sting his cheeks.

“We can’t keep this up,” he gasps as the grass at their feet smoulders. “We have to fall back.”

“No!” Kevin’s words come in laboured bursts as he struggles to breathe through the ash. Soot is smeared across his cheeks like vicious bruising. “We have to get this under control. If it reaches the Foxhole-!”

“Kevin, something is wrong. It’s like the fire is _trying_ to wear us out…” Neil trails off as he sees, far too late, the net closing in on them. No, not on them; on Kevin. “Kevin, you have to get out of here. _Now_.”

“On the contrary,” says a voice. The blue flames hiss as they part like a curtain. The figure that emerges from the rolling clouds of smoke and ash is a familiar one. “Kevin,” says Riko Moriyama, dripping with false sincerity. “It’s time to come home.”

It is hard to tell if Kevin’s pallor is due to the blood draining from his face or the white flashes of Riko’s fire cracking and snaping around them. He watches his abuser’s approach with pure, unrestrained horror.

With no hope of help arriving and Kevin frozen to the spot, Neil takes the only option left to him; he places himself between the once-brothers with the certainty that it will be the last thing he ever does. Riko’s gaze is sharply triumphant as he looks down upon Neil like a cat-owl would a mouse. “Did you find another bodyguard to hide behind, Kevin? I swear they just get smaller and smaller.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Neil snarls. “Kevin isn’t going anywhere with you.”

Riko’s expression smooths over with surprise, as though an ant had spoken back to his boot. “Someone never learned how to behave in the presence of royalty.”

“I don’t see any royalty here,” Neil snaps back. “Just a castoff, second-rate firebender with delusions of grandeur.”

Kevin hisses something unintelligible through his teeth, grabbing the back of Neil’s shirt as though preparing to haul him back from a fight. Riko’s reaction, in contrast, is as slow as a glacier. The hair on the back of Neil’s neck stands on end as Riko begins to twist his arms in calculated circles. Kevin’s grip tightens.

“Neil,” he says warningly.

“I’ll give you one chance to get out of my way,” says Riko as static sparks and crackles down his arms. Neil watches, mesmerised. He has never seen lightningbending in action before; were it not for his fear of the man practicing it, he would have described it as beautiful.

Neil uses the last of his survival instincts to brace himself. “Right back at you.”

Riko thrusts his arm forward, and the forest flashes blinding white. Neil hears Kevin yelling, and Neil barely has time to throw him back before his world explodes.

_“Pay attention,” Kevin snapped. Hours of training had worn his patience to threads. “This move could save your life one day.”_

_“So?” Neil returned, matching Kevin’s irritation with his own. “It isn’t much use when I can’t even tell if I’m doing it right.”_

_“There’s no way of knowing until someone shoots lightning at you. Pray the occasion never arises.”_

_“You could shoot lightning at me,” Neil said, “and I could try to redirect it. Isn’t that how you learned?”_

_Kevin stopped mid-move. His back was to Neil, but his left hand clenched into a fist. “I can’t. I can’t, and I won’t.”_

_“I’ll be fine, come on-!”_

_Kevin spun around, his features a queasy ashen colour. “I won’t be him, Neil. I won’t do to you what he did to me. I won’t risk-” He cuts himself off, his left arm curling in against his chest. “I don’t want to hurt you.”_

_Understanding pulled Neil’s chest apart. “Like he hurt you.”_

_Kevin flinched as Neil raised his hand, but stilled as Neil placed it carefully over his injured arm. The jagged burns twisted along the length of Kevin’s forearm in rivulets, textured under Neil’s fingers. They reminded him of Andrew’s scars._

_“Okay. We do it your way.” Neil tightened his grip a moment, before letting his hand drop away. From the way Kevin started, Neil wondered if anyone had ever said that to him before. “Show me the move again. Riko isn’t going to stand a chance.”_

_Kevin’s smile was brief, fierce, proud, and countless things besides. “Let’s take it from the top.”_

Lightning explodes from Riko’s fingers, crashing into Neil in a vicious haze of hatred. For a moment, it feels like a window into Riko’s soul, wild and destructive and untameable.

But Neil _can_ tame it.

Instinct takes over; he lets the hatred flow through him, but he does not let it control him. He twists and redirects the volatile energy like a rock diverting the path of a river. For a moment he holds the energy in place, standing between Kevin’s panic and Riko’s shock, letting the lightning rake its claws across his arms. He smiles.

Then he flips, and Riko barely moves out of the way in time to dodge the explosion of electricity that screams back towards him.

When Riko climbs back to his feet, his armour is dented and smoking, and his hair is standing on end. He doesn’t seem to notice as he takes a wobbly step forward, eyes wide as though seeing Neil for the first time. Recognition washes his features blank. “ _Wesninski_.”

The sound of his name hits Neil with more force than the lightning did. He staggers backwards, reaching blindly for Kevin as though he can block the sound before it reaches him. He’s too late; the noise Kevin makes is terrible as he makes the connection between Neil and Nathaniel at last.

The ground rattles as a deafening boom echoes from the other side of the camp.

Neil doesn’t wait for Riko to get over his shock. He hooks his hand around Kevin’s wrist and pulls them through the waning flames into the shadows of the ash-coated forest.

Their progress is slow, weighed down by exhaustion and shock. There is no sign that they are being followed, however, which makes Neil wonder what else Riko has planned. By the time they reach camp, the battle has petered to a temporary standstill. The Fire Nation ships blot the horizon like circling predators waiting for a moment of weakness. The Foxhole’s walls are beaten and scorched, but standing – just. They find the Foxes gathered in the pavilion, where Abby and Aaron are tending to their injuries.

“We can’t leave him there!” Allison is struggling in Dan’s arms as though her life depends on breaking free. “Let me go, I have to get to him, I have to…!”

“Alli,” Dan says, her grip on Allison’s shoulders tight as she forces her to meet her eyes. Dan is soaked from head to toe, her hair plastered to her head and her arms dark with bruises. “He’s gone, Alli. Seth is dead.”

Kevin lets out a low moan, and it’s then that the others notice their arrival.

“Thank god,” Abby rushes over to check them for injuries, water flickering at her fingertips.

“We’re fine,” Neil says, brushing her aside. He realises, with a gut-punch reaction that rips through his body, that Seth isn’t the only one missing. “Where’s Andrew?”

There is a moment of dead, hollow silence.

Nicky, who Neil now notices is crying, is the first to answer. “Riko’s soldiers took him.”

“They snuck up behind us while we were out on the cliffs,” Dan explains, her voice wavering. Allison has stopped struggling, folding herself instead into Dan’s embrace. The blood caking on Dan’s jaw smears into Allison’s curls, but neither of them seem to notice.

“That’s not possible,” Neil says, the words numb in his mouth. “Andrew would have felt them coming. He feels everything.”

“Throwing that many boulders is exhausting, Neil,” Dan says, the droop of her shoulders underlining her words. “He was so focused on driving the attackers back that his radar dropped. I think that’s why he usually sticks to his blades in battle, but tonight…”

“He was keeping them away from the cove,” Nicky whispers. “He was protecting us.” Abby places a hand on Nicky’s shoulder and he leans into it like it’s his lifeline.

“They pushed us off the cliff edge, into the ocean, so we couldn’t earthbend,” Dan continues. “It was easy for one of the ships to pick us out of the water. They only let me go because…” All the air leaves her lungs in a full-body shudder. “…Riko wanted to send a message.”

Kevin makes an unintelligible sound in the back of his throat, like he knows what’s coming.

“Riko will give Andrew back if Kevin surrenders himself to him.” Aaron’s voice is so flat that it could have been his brother’s. The glare he levels at Kevin is accusatory. “Which seems fair, as it’s Kevin’s fault we’re in this mess.”

Neil and Matt both step forward at once, fists raised, but Renee is between them all in a flash. She buffets them away from each other with a blast of air which doesn’t abate until they raise their hands in surrender.

“Now is not the time to turn against each other,” she says, her voice deadly calm. “That is exactly what Riko wants.”

Neil’s fury abates as quickly as it came. “She’s right.” He looks from Fox to Fox, making sure to meet every gaze dead-on. “We aren’t giving up Andrew, but we sure as hell aren’t giving him Kevin either.”

“Yes, you are,” Kevin says, low and miserable and more broken than Neil has ever heard him. “You don’t know what he’s capable of, what he’ll do to Andrew if I don’t-” His voice cracks and breaks as he curls in on himself. Neil grabs his left arm before he can fall to his knees while Wymack grabs his right.

“ _If you_ nothing,” Wymack says gruffly, his hold firm. “We agreed, kid. No martyr acts.”

“What, so we leave Andrew to die?” Aaron snaps. It’s the most emotion Neil has ever seen him display towards his brother.

“They wouldn’t kill him,” says Kevin miserably. He leaves the second part of that sentence unspoken: that Riko is capable of far worse than murder. The curl of Aaron’s lip says that he heard it anyway. The possibilities wash over Neil in an endless, awful wave. For as long as he can remember, being captured by the Fire Nation was Neil’s greatest fear. It’s only now that he realises there is something he fears more than his own death, and people he can’t afford to lose.

Andrew and the Foxes taught him how to fall. It’s time to find out what happens when he hits the ground.

He leans against Kevin, no longer sure who is holding up who. For months, both of them have lived in the relative safety of the Foxes’ encampment, both leaning on the sturdy foundations of Andrew’s protection. The steady presence both of them have grown accustomed to has been ripped out from beneath them, and the ground no longer feels solid beneath Neil’s feet.

“I have an idea,” Neil says. A dozen pairs of eyes flick to him at once. He can’t meet any of them. “I have something that Riko wants more than Kevin. Send me to his ship, and I’ll exchange it for Andrew’s release.”

Kevin’s grip on Neil suddenly becomes tighter than a vice. “There’s only one thing Riko wants more than my return,” he says lowly. “And you couldn’t give it to him even if you wanted to.”

Neil forces himself to meet Kevin’s gaze. “Trust me.”

Kevin stares at Neil as though searching for something he missed written in Neil’s expression. Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it.

“You should have told me about your father,” Kevin quietly accuses him. Neil drops his gaze, but cannot bring himself to apologise. The damage is done, and he has no time for regrets. Soon, it won’t matter anymore. Kevin has no reason to trust Neil now; he understands better than anyone ever will the danger Neil has put them all in. All the same, he places his hand over Neil’s and nods. His skin is hot against Neil’s; the blood of firebenders calling to each other in perfect understanding. “Fine. I trust you.”

Neil leads the way, and the Foxes follow.

The pride of Riko’s fleet floats a little way out from the shore, the distance insultingly short, like Riko has left the welcome mat out in the surety that Kevin will soon be kneeling on it. Neil takes one of the Foxes’ tiny fishing boats and rows it out to meet them, hood pulled over his head so the soldiers won’t recognise him and blast him out of the water before he has the chance to make his case. The Foxes watch from the shoreline, faceless silhouettes crowded together, painted silver by the moonlight. The greatest struggle of Neil’s life comes in stopping himself from looking back.

Neil is hauled onto the boat by faceless guards with rough hands who throw him to the floor of the deck at Riko’s feet. Riko can tell already that their captive isn’t Kevin, lips pulling into a dangerous snarl at the sight of Neil’s smaller stature, but when a guard yanks Neil’s hood back a spark of curiosity flashes in Riko’s eyes as he sees who they sent in Kevin’s place. It was all Neil hoped for, more than enough to work with.

“Trust the Foxes to be unable to follow simple instructions. Tell me, is your stupidity contagious?” Riko fists a hand in Neil’s hair and yanks his head back so he can scream in his face. “KEVIN! Where is he?”

“Where is Andrew?” Neil says, struggling to keep his voice level in the face of Riko’s fury.

“Do not play games with me, Wesninski. I might have been willing to let your insubordination slide in exchange for my brother’s return, but I will not be toyed with. I know many people would love to watch you die a slow and painful death. Do not tempt me to indulge them.”

It’s a miracle that Neil doesn’t flinch at the sound of his name. “I have a better deal for you.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“I want to see Andrew first.” Neil summons every inch of steel that his time with the Foxes has given him and forces it into his eyes as he writhes in Riko’s grip. “Let me see him, and then I’ll tell you what I have. You won’t be disappointed.”

Riko laughs, but ultimately decides that he has nothing to lose in humouring Neil. He snaps his fingers, and a pair of soldiers disappear into the lower decks. They return with Andrew between them, beaten, bruised, and still soaked from his dip in the ocean, but mercifully breathing. His legs drag behind him as they pull him forward for Neil’s inspection. His hands are bound against his chest in metal chains: they may be too far from land for Andrew to earthbend, but either Andrew’s reputation for his knife fighting precedes him or they’re refusing to take any risks. Either way, Neil is amazed that Andrew can still breathe under the weight of the shackles. When Andrew lifts his head to see Neil kneeling at Riko’s feet, his eyes flash with something deep and dark and feral. Neil tries to put a thousand words into his answering gaze, but in the end settles only on one. Trust.

“I’m waiting,” says Riko, shifting his weight to block Neil’s view of Andrew. “I hope for your sake that your offer is a good one, because I have two hostages now, and I only need one.”

“You let Kevin go. You let the foxes go. In return, I will give you something your family will find far more valuable.”

Riko cackles. “Do you know how much time and effort we have exerted in bringing our lost Raven home? What could you possibly have to offer us?”

Neil looks up at Riko, sees the years of obsession and desperation and the cloying, endless need for his family’s attention, and knows with a certainty as painful as it is triumphant that his plan will work. “I can give you the Avatar.”

Riko goes very, very still. Neil swears he hears a collective intake of breath from the surrounding soldiers. Andrew’s eyes narrow, a crease dimpling in his forehead as though he’s rushing to reach the end of an equation before anyone else beats him to it.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I’m staking the lives of every Fox on it. I’ll deliver the Avatar straight into your hands, but you have to swear you’ll let the Foxes go free, Andrew included.”

Kevin and Riko’s search for the Avatar has lasted all their lives, crossed seas and deserts and entire nations, caused immeasurable bloodshed. Finding the Avatar is perhaps the only accomplishment that could render Riko worthy of the Fire Lord’s attention, and this is what Neil is counting on. Everything depends on Riko’s need for his family’s acknowledgement outweighing his need for Kevin.

“Do we have a deal?”

Riko’s eyes flick from Neil to the Foxhole smouldering on the horizon and back to Neil. He steps forwards, close enough that Neil can smell the ash clinging to his clothes. “We have a deal.” The hunger in Riko’s gaze is bottomless. “Where is the Avatar?”

Neil breathes his last breath as a free man, and lets the Foxes go. “Right in front of you.”

A noise punches from Andrew’s chest. It might have been Neil’s name.

Riko’s expression freezes, as if unable to decide between mirth and fury. Before he can accuse Neil of lying and gut him like a fish, Neil closes his eyes and bows his head. His second-ever attempt at waterbending is sloppy, but it gets the point across; the flask at his hip bursts open, and a stream of water wobbles from within, hovering at eye-level for a moment before splashing into the deck.

“Water Tribe,” Riko says, barely audible. He stares at Neil as though his entire universe has narrowed to the space between them. “You were supposed to be from the Water Tribe.”

“My mother was.” Forcing himself to meet Andrew’s eyes is the hardest thing he’s ever done. They burn through him, alight with shock, outrage, betrayal, more feeling than Neil has ever known Andrew to let slip through his carefully erected stone walls. Neil doesn’t try to apologise, knows Andrew deserves far more than he can ever hope to fit into a few rushed syllables, but hopes against hope that some of his intent will get through regardless. Neil has no idea what will happen to him now that he has surrendered his most valuable secret, but it’s a certainty that he will never see his Foxes again. He has to rely on Andrew to take his story back to them, to make sure they know that Neil never wanted to endanger them, to betray them, to leave them. He hopes Andrew will find a way of cutting around the pain of Neil’s story, that of Neil’s past and that which surely awaits him. The Foxes deserve the gentle ending that Neil cannot have for himself. “You have what you asked for. Let him go.”

Riko’s gaze remains fixed on him as though he expects Neil to vanish the moment he looks away. “Ready the boat. Send the earthbender back to his hovel.” His voice is horse, distant.

Riko’s soldiers skirt around Neil as they rush to follow their orders, twitching back from him like they expect him to explode. Neil takes the moment of distraction to shuffle towards Andrew. His shoulders curl forwards as Neil approaches, arms straining against his restraints.

“You said you would do anything,” Andrew says under his breath, his words clipped with urgency. “Anything I asked in return for bringing the Foxes together.”

Neil’s stomach sinks as he remembers the unpaid debt. “I did.”

“What if I asked you to stay?”

Neil closes his eyes as the dam of his grief groans and cracks under the weight of Andrew’s words. “You wouldn’t. You’d never break your promise to Kevin.”

“And if I did?”

“You promised you would let me go, Andrew,” Neil whispers. “Don’t ask me for something I can’t give you.” Neil lets his head tilt forward until their foreheads are resting against each other. Andrew’s brow is slick with seawater, and this close Neil can see every fleck of gold in his hazel eyes. “Thank you,” Neil says, the words scratching at his throat. He can’t bring himself to elaborate with Riko standing so near: for the bending, the kisses, the trust. He can only hope that Andrew figures it out eventually. “You were amazing.”

Neil realises, a beat too late, that his words are dynamite dropped down a mineshaft. He always believed Andrew was indestructible, so the sight of Andrew’s expression crumbling and collapsing in on itself pulls Neil apart at the seams. He has seen Andrew’s brand of flat, faceless anger, his mild fits of irritability when Kevin is pushing for more than Andrew is willing to give, but never this. This is raw, unfettered fury. What really tears Neil to pieces, however, is the bottomless fear at its heart.

Andrew isn’t afraid of anything. Except, he is, and Neil curses himself for not seeing it sooner. He’s afraid of losing Neil.

It’s as two guards seize Andrew by his arms and haul him away that Andrew’s control snaps like dry bone. Neil opens his mouth to shout – a warning, a plea, anything to save Andrew from himself. Neil is ready to go down without a fight, but neither that nor every promise binding Andrew to Kevin, to the Foxes, his family, his life, means Andrew is ready to do the same. Andrew is lost to his fear and his fury, out of control like a boulder hurtling down a cliff face. The implications are too much for Neil to handle, but the scene unfolding before him forces the wordless question to the back of his mind.

Andrew headbutts the first soldier and shoulders out of the grip of the next. He plants his feet against the deck in what looks like an earthbending stance, but there’s nothing in range of them that he could-

Neil gapes as Andrew’s metal cuffs crumple and fall away. They clank as they hit the deck, not just broken but warped, distorted. Andrew melted through them like they were made of butter. He _bended them off_.

If Andrew is aware of the impossibility of what has just occurred, he shows no sign of it. The soldiers may have confiscated the knives swinging from Andrew’s belt, but they missed the stilettos built into his armbands. They flash through the air, scattering the approaching soldiers. Only Riko is unaffected by Andrew’s unbridled fury. He watches Andrew plant himself between Riko and Neil with the same regard he would a toddler with a wooden sword. A smile stretches across his face.

“Not as well-trained as you look, mutt.” The air crackles around him as dark clouds swirl overhead. “I may have promised to let you go, but I’m afraid you’re forcing my hand. If a mongrel cannot behave itself, it must be put down.” His eyes flick back to Neil. “Restrain the Avatar.”

Andrew leaps for Riko at the same moment that a hand seizes Neil’s shoulder and throws him to the deck. Neil thrashes as his arms are pulled behind him and his wrists are cuffed, and he loses track of the fight unfolding before him as his vision is consumed by the scuffed planks of the ship’s deck. He does not miss, however, the flash of lightning that paints the world white, nor the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the deck.

“Throw him overboard,” Riko orders. “I’m tired of these antics.”

Neil screams Andrew’s name, or he thinks he does. He loses track of everything for a moment. The world lurches and tilts as the ocean swirls and rises, and deeper still, the earth below it trembles and cracks. For a moment, Neil is floating somewhere between himself and not, brought back only by the sound of Andrew’s body hitting the water. A deathly silence follows.

“I’ll kill you,” says Neil lowly. Fire dances across his arms, forcing the guard kneeling on his back to retreat. The flames lick across him, an agonising burn that Neil allows to scream through him, unrestrained. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

Riko’s boots appear in Neil’s eyeline. Every hair on Neil’s body stands on end as the air crackles with static. Neil rolls himself onto his back despite his body’s protests. He meets Riko’s gaze with all the fury he can muster.

“You have caused my family a great deal of hassle over the years, Avatar.” Riko pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs at the blood trickling from his freshly bust lip. “And now you are going to pay for it.” He pockets the bloodstained handkerchief and rears back, blue sparks twitching at his fingertips.

Neil doesn’t even have time to spit back a retort. Another bolt of lightning rips his world in two, and everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's so hype for Kevin's big clown moment while Andrew's out here getting his entire ass zapped into the clown dimension.
> 
> ((dumb end note jokes are how I handle the guilt))


	6. Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tell me about the Avatar state,” Riko says. “You’ve entered it before, haven’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whats up hello hi how did yall enjoy ur cliffhanger? I sure hope that never happens again  
> next chapter is gonna be stupid long so everyone prayer circle for me getting it posted on time
> 
> I've also found out that there are quite a few people reading this who have never seen ATLA? I am (1) super honoured and (2) happy to explain any worldbuilding points that maybe aren't so clear without the context of the show, just let me know if there's any questions you want answered in a spoiler-free way :)
> 
> Content warnings: graphic violence, torture, blood, death.

When Neil comes around, the room is swaying, and not because of his concussion. It’s the familiar tilt and roll of a steamship, all metal and bolts and Fire Nation insignias. Neil’s stomach flips, a mix of seasickness and terror. Will he be handed over to his father, or will the Moriyamas want to dispose of the Avatar themselves?

There are no official records of how many Avatars have been slaughtered throughout the years to safeguard the Moriyama empire, but Neil can feel their weight in his chest with every breath. The reality of his surrender is accompanied by a pang of disappointment that he wasn’t expecting. Neil never believed he would be the one to break the Moriyama’s hold over the other nations, but the failure still stings. He is one more defeated Avatar in an ever-growing chain, and it’s only now that he truly feels the weight of his failure. Neil blames Kevin, his endless drive and contagious certainty that Kengo could be dethroned through the Foxes’ efforts. Somewhere down the line, Neil had started to believe him. His surrender to the realities of Moriyama rule is another needlepoint of loss amongst the mess of gaping holes left by the Foxes.

When Neil tries to move, a series of clatters and clanks alerts him to the chains cuffing his wrists and ankles. The icy metal bites his skin and his breath mists in the air; his cell is artificially cooled to supress his firebending. His armour was confiscated while he was unconscious, and his thin shirt and trousers do nothing to protect him from the chill. Every point of contact between himself and the steel floor burns cold. Neil doesn’t see the point of the security. Even if he managed to escape, all Riko would have to do is turn tail and storm the Foxhole again. Neil would sacrifice himself to Riko a thousand times if it meant keeping his Foxes safe. Either way, Riko isn’t taking any chances.

He isn’t sure how much time passes as he drifts in and out of consciousness. He turns the last moments of the fight over and over in his mind, attempting to calculate Andrew’s chances of surviving a lightning strike, being heaved into the ocean, the distance to the shore, the time it would have taken the Foxes to reach him. The odds aren’t encouraging, but speculation is useless. It is unlikely that Neil will live long enough to find out. Andrew’s fate burns a hole through him regardless, and Neil is sure he will die with the memory of their final moment together burned into his soul.

The last time Neil was on a Fire Nation vessel, he was with his mother, and in the haze of his concussion he swears he can feel her at his side, her fingers yanking through his hair as she curses him for every step that brought him to where he is. Even with her fury echoing in his ears, Neil can’t bring himself to regret a second of it. The Moriyamas may kill him, but his Foxes are safe. The cycle will continue on without him.

The next time Neil comes around, Riko is standing over him. Neil blinks blearily at his cattish smile before his attention slides to the other man in the room. He wears the same uniform as the other soldiers but is set apart by his sea-grey eyes. It takes a moment for Neil to connect the tattoo on his cheekbone to the man Kevin warned him of. Jean Moreau stands with his eyes fixed on the blank wall as though finding it infinitely more interesting than the room’s occupants. Decked in Fire Nation red despite his Water Tribe origins, the scarlet uniform drains all the colour from Jean’s complexion.

Neil’s mother told Neil of the Fire Nation’s devastating attacks on the Southern Tribe, and how the Fire Nation dealt with the prisoners it took. Prestigious families, like the Moreaus, took any deal they could to win Moriyama favour, up to and including selling Water Tribe secrets in exchange for a position at the royal family’s side. Those families who could not please or provide for the Fire Lord…

His mother hadn’t needed to finish that sentence.

Jean was the only waterbender ever admitted to the Raven Academy, accepted in the wake of a deal between the Moriyamas and the Moreaus which demanded that their firstborn son to be raised and trained as one of the Fire Nation’s own. Despite growing up exclusively in the company of firebenders, Jean nonetheless succeeded in mastering waterbending under his own tutelage, quickly becoming one Riko’s most formidable soldiers. If Jean’s experiences as a pawn of the Fire Nation have encouraged any sympathy for Neil’s plight, it doesn’t show in his empty expression. Neil’s eyes soon track back to the far more imminent threat standing over him.

“Tell me about the Avatar state,” Riko says. “You’ve entered it before, haven’t you?”

Neil tenses automatically. Romero Malcolm’s dying screams echo in his ears. “Never on purpose.”

“Would you like me to tell you a secret?” Riko drops onto one knee. His hair has been freed of its usual tight bun, and it swings past his shoulders as he leans over Neil, one hand braced against the wall by his head. “Kevin was always a brilliant researcher. Never the best firebender – _never_ – but a brilliant mind, certainly, one of the best. He found and translated texts on past Avatars from the spirit library that have been lost to humanity for generations. Such a shame to have lost that mind, but…” Casually, as though he is handling a toothpick instead of a weapon, Riko slips a knife from the sheath on his hip and flips it over in his palm. “…so much to be gained in its place.”

“I thought the Fire Lord’s son would have better things to do than waste his night fucking with me,” Neil says flatly. Then, because he’s already in a hole and may as well start digging, “Oh, sorry. _Estranged_ son. My mistake.”

There’s a low hiss of air which Neil initially mistakes for the ship’s machinery but turns out to be Jean. Riko’s expression tightens, but his smile doesn’t so much as twitch. He presses the tip of the blade to Neil’s bottom lip, slicing it open so slowly Neil can hear his skin ripping open.

“Kevin found a particularly interesting passage on the Avatar state,” Riko continues as though Neil had not spoken. “One that we have been waiting to test for a _long_ time. Most of your life, in fact.” Riko doesn’t ease the pressure on the blade as he trails the knife downwards, cutting a path down the curve of Neil’s chin and along the line of his oesophagus. Neil’s breath catches in his chest; one mistimed twitch and Riko will slit his throat. “Apparently, if an Avatar is killed while in the Avatar state, the cycle will be broken. No more reincarnation.” The knife stutters in the dip of Neil’s clavicle, slipping in the pooling blood. “No more you.”

“I don’t know how to enter the Avatar state.” Neil’s eyes track Riko’s blade as it catches the light. Riko seizes Neil’s chin in his hand, smearing his own blood across his jawline.

“Luckily for you, we have the whole journey home to figure it out.” Riko snaps his fingers, and Jean kneels on Neil’s other side, pinning him in place on the floor. Neil tries to wrench away from Jean’s grip and succeeds only in skinning his wrists on the cuffs. Riko’s eyes glint as he watches Neil struggle. “No need to worry, Nathaniel.” The knife slides through Neil’s shirt like butter, tearing the worn fabric back to reveal the heaving, vulnerable expanse of his chest. “I have _complete_ faith in you.”

Riko’s knives flash, and Neil starts to scream.

*

Day and night melt together in the bowels of the ship. Neil’s routine is no longer defined by sunrise and sunset, but two different states: when Riko is there, and when he is not. After Riko finishes with him, Neil collapses into a feverish sleep, and every time he comes around to the sensation of icy water smoothing over his wounds. The glistening flow across his limbs is an agony and a relief rolled into one; the water is cool, but the restorative energy flowing through it sets Neil’s nervous system alight.

On what could be Neil’s tenth day under Riko’s knives as easily as it could be his hundredth, Neil cracks an eye open to watch Jean’s swaying movements, the coppery taste of his own blood still thick on his lips. Jean works with more water than usual, sweat beading on his brow as he works energy into Neil’s aching body. Usually, Jean goes no further than sealing Neil’s wounds so he won’t bleed out prematurely, but this time Jean reaches deeper, stitching severed muscles and ligaments back together beneath Neil’s skin. Neil twitches his fingers as sensation returns to them for the first time in… however long he has been here.

“Don’t try anything,” Jean says without turning his head.

If Neil could move without feeling as though his whole body was ripping open, he would laugh. “Why are you helping me?”

“I’m not.” Jean pulls the water away from Neil’s torso. It glimmers in the air for a moment before Jean directs it into a bucket by his feet. “You need to be able to walk.”

“Going hiking, are we?”

“Tomorrow, you shall be presented to the Fire Lord. It is preferable that you are still capable of standing when you meet him.” Jean flicks a disinterested look over Neil’s injuries. “ _Preferable_ ,” he emphasises, “but not mandatory. I suggest that, until we arrive, you keep that tongue in check.”

“Jean,” Neil says as the waterbender picks up the bucket turns to leave. Riko had been successfully convinced that Neil lacked ability in any element other than fire, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Twice a day, a servant pried Neil’s mouth open and tipped water in while Jean stood guard in case Neil tried to weaponize it. “Why? Why do you stay with them?”

Jean stops in the doorway, his back to Neil. “Not all of us had the option to run.” He leaves Neil with nothing but the distant roar of the ocean for company.

*

The Fire Lord’s son is younger than Neil expected, with sharp cheekbones to match his sharp eyes. For the first time in days, Riko’s attention has left Neil entirely, the focus of his endless hunger transferring to Ichirou in an instant. Neil is surprised to see that Riko’s enthusiasm for his brother’s attention is no less than it was for his father, whose absence from their reception goes unexplained. Neil hopes viciously that some terrible illness has struck Kengo down.

Riko bows deeply as his brother takes his place on the throne, and forces Neil to do the same with a blade pressed to the back of his neck. Neil tries to ignore the blood trickling down his spine as the young lord looks him over.

“And you have not succeeded in invoking the Avatar state?” Ichirou does not look at his brother as he speaks.

“Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time,” Riko answers breathlessly. “I think that if we-”

Ichirou holds up a hand, and Riko falls silent. “If the Avatar dies without entering the Avatar state, we risk losing another twenty years tracking down the next reincarnation. You have already proven that you lack restraint, and so you will carry no further responsibility in this matter. If the Avatar state is prompted by physical duress, then it is best to leave Nathaniel in the hands of a professional.” Ichirou’s eyes move at last from Neil to his brother. “Return to the field. Your continued failure to quash the rebels is tiresome.”

Riko’s mouth falls open, wobbling around half-formed words like an elephant-koi fish. Neil instinctively shuffles out of Riko’s reach, but one of Ichirou’s guards steps in before Riko can snap, turning Riko roughly by the shoulder and escorting him from the room. Were it not for the words _physical duress_ still bouncing around Neil’s skull, he would have laughed.

“Is it true that you surrendered yourself willingly?” Ichirou’s words snap Neil back to the present. “Why?”

Neil doesn’t see the point in lying, not now that everything has been stripped from him. “So Riko would let my friends go free,” he answers, no longer able to hide the exhaustion from his voice. One of Ichirou’s eyebrows twitches. Neil starts to wonder if he should have lied after all.

“Take him to the Prison Tower.” Ichirou says, eyes fixed upon Neil as though measuring his reaction. “We will see if his father has any better luck in dealing with him.”

Neil lurches forwards, but a dozen hands clamp down on him, dragging him from the room before he even has time to scream.

Neil spends three long days waiting for his father’s arrival in the iciest cell the capital’s Prison Tower has to offer. The island upon which his father is stationed is some distance away, but Neil imagines that the Butcher will find a way to cut down at his journey time when he hears the promise of what awaits him back in the capital. Luckily for Nathan – unluckily for Neil – one of his men is on hand to get the job started for him.

Lola may be slavering at the prospect of avenging the brother who died hunting Neil down, but she is also a professional, and Ichirou grants her permission to drive Neil to the brink of his physical capacities in the hope of kickstarting the Avatar state. Neil thought he had hit the limits of survivable pain after his days with Riko, but in truth Riko’s games were child’s play. The cell Neil is locked in, much like his cell on Riko’s ship, is insulated to hold the room at sub-zero temperatures, rendering him unable to firebend. Lola, who wraps herself in the most expensive furs money can buy during her visits to Neil’s cell, has no such issue. She runs flaming hands across Neil’s body over and over, leaving sizzling, ruined skin in her wake. Neil screams and sobs and vomits and screams again until his voice gives out. It makes no difference at all.

Neil has no idea why his body hasn’t given into the torture his mind has long surrendered to. At this point, he would welcome the Avatar state, would welcome the end of the world if it meant an end to his pain. The importance of the cycle is a distant memory, burned away by Lola’s hands. Every visit, she reminds Neil that she is only the warm-up act. The main event is on an airship barrelling its way to the capital.

In the haze of night, when Neil is left with only the sound of his ragged breathing for company, he thinks of his Foxes. He remembers Renee leaping from roof to roof with the wind swirling beneath her as Allison cheers her on. He remembers Nicky and Aaron pelting each other with food across the campfire, Seth snapping at them when a burning morsel of kale bounces off his forehead. He remembers Matt and Dan strolling hand in hand along the parapet as the sun rises behind them, and Wymack and Abby rolling their eyes in perfect synchronicity at the Foxes’ antics. He remembers Kevin’s harsh words as he nudges Neil’s arms into position day after day, his relentless faith in the future they were fighting for. He remembers Andrew, pinning Nathaniel to the steaming earth with steady hands and unwavering trust. Neil’s grief tears him apart and pulls him back together stronger than before.

Sleep, when it comes in its sickly fits and starts, comes with hazy dreams of another Avatar, the next in the cycle, born far, far away, free of the blood and the mess and the fear. Dreams of traveling the world on new legs, of returning to his Foxes in a new life, of seeing Andrew again through new and unfamiliar eyes, and he is older and weather-worn and a little emptier than before but still miraculously _alive_. Hope is a dangerous, agonising ember in the pit of his stomach, but it is all he has left. Hope that someone, somewhere, will have the life that Neil cannot.

He traces the shape of a pebble into his palm and wishes Neil goodbye.

*

Nathaniel Wesninski counts the days to his inevitable death. Eventually, the Moriyamas will grow tired of their failure to invoke the Avatar state, or Lola’s torture will push him past the point of return. The cycle will begin anew.

“Hello, junior.”

The voice coming from the doorway has not changed in the decade since Nathaniel last heard it. A remaining scrap of strength Nathaniel didn’t know he had shrivels and dies as he withers away from the sound. His body has yet to catch up with his mind’s understanding of the terrible, irrefutable fact that there is nowhere left to run. Nathaniel closes his eyes, and in some strange, irresistible act of masochism, he summons his last memories of Andrew. Brave. Grounded. Unbending. Unrelenting. Nathaniel grips onto the memories like a rock in a stormy sea.

The Butcher’s tools clink against each other as he unhooks them from his belt, all glinting and freshly sharpened.

Rock, rock, rock.

“Time to do your old man proud,” his father’s voice pours into his ears like oil. Nathaniel shivers as sweat drips down his forehead.

Rock, earth, Andrew-!

His father’s axe swishes through the air and grinds to a halt an inch from Nathaniel’s shoulder. Nathaniel blinks, and finds his own baffled expression reflected back at him.

“What the fuck?”

_Earth_. Tiny elements, particles of earth bent and twisted and watered down and poured into the metal axe head-

Nathaniel can taste them, shiny and distorted but _there_ , calling out to him. Nathaniel twists, plants his feet against the floor and _pushes_. The axe flies out of Nathan’s hand and embeds itself in the far wall. Nathan spins back towards Nathaniel, befuddlement and fury twisting his face, but Nathaniel is quicker. His metal cuffs buckle and bend as he wrenches them from his wrists. With another twist of his body, Nathaniel hurls the chains towards Nathan, snaking then around him until his limbs are forced to his sides. He falls, skin turning purple from the chain choking his neck. A grunt shakes from Nathan’s chest, the closest sound he can make to a scream. He struggles a few moments more and then goes still, and Nathaniel feels the moment the hammering pulse in his neck grinds to a halt.

Nathaniel turns away, nausea climbing his throat, and runs his scorched hand along the metal door until he feels the shape of the lock. The fragments of earth buckle and part under his will, and the door swings open.

Nathaniel pauses long enough to yank Nathan’s axe from the wall. He holds it loosely at his side as he staggers into the dark, letting the door swing shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vibe? checked!
> 
> Also just a note to say I'll be posting a few shorts for the aftg summer event this & next week so keep an eye out for those! And check out #aftgsummer on tumblr, twitter etc to see what everyone else is up to :)


	7. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you don’t mind my asking, is it Nathaniel, now, or Neil?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: scars, injuries, death, nudity, physical displays of affection.  
> This chapter contains scenes of a sexual nature. Nothing more explicit/graphic than anything in the books, but if it's not your thing, skip from "a cavern blown open by fallen rock" to the end of the chapter.

Nathaniel has no plan, no chance, no hope. His injuries scream with every step he takes, and he lolls against the tower wall as he makes his way down the winding staircase, counting the seconds until his luck runs out. Will the guards wrestle him back into his cell, or kill him on the spot? No; they will keep him chained and broken for as long as it takes to get what they want from him.

Maybe it’s better if he finds a corner to hole himself up in and wait until he passes away from starvation or infection or blood loss, somewhere their healers won’t find him and pull him back together long enough to withstand the next round of torture. The Fire Nation has a thousand butchers, and Nathaniel barely escaped one.

He stops in an enclave, chest heaving as he slumps against the wall, weighing his options. Nathaniel has never wanted to die, but he knows from Kevin’s rambling lectures how important the Avatar is, how the cycle must survive even if Nathaniel doesn’t. If Nathaniel dies here and now, the cycle is guaranteed for at least another generation. It’s a sad kind of hope, but it’s all he has left.

The Prison Tower is strangely quiet, lacking the usual clank of soldiers patrolling from post to post. The arrow-slit window set into the enclave lets in a faint breeze that toys with the torches mounted on the opposite wall. Unable to remember the last time he saw the sky, Nathaniel hauls himself closer, only to be washed with a thick, smoky air that scratches his lungs. The air of the Fire Nation capital always has an ashy tint to it, but this is different. Nathaniel squints through the smog to see pillars of smoke rising from the city centre and a glow on the horizon that has nothing to do with the sun. The capital is under attack.

There is a sudden, deafening crack which runs the length of the tower, knocking crumbs of stone and dust from the ceiling. Nathaniel crumples to his knees, ears ringing, as footsteps hammer up the staircase towards him. Nathaniel grips his father’s axe with blood-slick hands. He may not die on his feet, but he will die fighting.

The soldiers that approach don’t hesitate to slam Nathaniel against the wall, knocking the axe from Nathaniel’s hand before he has time to swing it. They call to each other in sharp, crisp syllables as they yank Nathaniel’s hands behind his back and cuff them. It takes Nathaniel a moment to process the familiar dialect.

“I’ve got the Butcher!”

“No, no, look at him! That’s his son!”

“Nathaniel?! Let me through, let me see him.”

The hands on his arms and back loosen as the cuffs fall away. A gentle touch turns him until he is sitting with his back to the wall. When he looks up, he sees his mother’s eyes in another face.

“Stuart?” Nathaniel rasps. He hasn’t used his voice to do anything but scream in days.

“Shitting hell,” Stuart says. His arms twitch like he wants to hug Nathaniel, but taking in his injuries, thinks better of it. “Your father?”

Nathaniel hiccups, the closest sound he can manage to laughter. “I think I killed him. I didn’t really mean to, but I’d do it again.”

“Mary?”

Despite the bolt of pain it sends down his spine, Nathaniel shakes his head. Stuart’s expression shutters and smooths over into careful blankness.

“All clear,” says one of the soldiers. “The remaining guards have been neutralised.” Nathaniel now recognises the accented warpaint and pointed wolf-pattern helmets of the Southern Water Tribe militia. Mary ran to Stuart’s branch after her escape, relying on her brother’s protection, but found the organisation to be unreliable, just as likely to sell them back to the butcher to maintain the peace or hold them as hostages. She had taken Nathaniel and left the Water Tribe soon after their arrival, cutting all ties to Stuart.

“I thought the bastard killed you years ago,” Stuart says, patting Nathaniel’s shoulder as though confirming that he is really there. “What the hell are you doing here, Nathaniel?”

Another soldier arrives from the opposite direction, panting. “Nothing in the other cells. He’s the only prisoner in the building.”

“Impossible,” Stuart snaps. “Our intel says the Avatar must be here.” He falls silent, eyes bulging as he looks back to Nathaniel. “You’re not…?”

Nathaniel smiles woozily. “Is this a rescue mission? If so, can we get on with it already?”

Stuart is as practiced in compartmentalisation as his sister was: he gestures to one of the soldiers, who heaves Nathaniel over his soldier. The movement is agonising, splitting fresh cuts open until blood winds down Nathaniel’s chest and arms. They pass through the tower gates as they retreat, where Nathaniel catches sight of several of Nathan’s guards, lying in pools of their own blood. Whatever chaos the Water Tribe militia have unleashed on the city centre is a perfect distraction, as there is no sign that their prison break has been noticed. A sick, hollow laugh shakes from Nathaniel’s chest as they pass what remains of Lola’s body.

The smoky air spits grey flecks of ash on them as they march towards the waiting ships. Shaking, exhausted, and aching from head to toe, Nathaniel lets his eyes slip shut.

When he awakes, the first thing he notices is the air, which is lighter, thinner, tinged with the moisture of early morning. Against his better judgement, he lifts an arm to find it caked in bandages. His clothes have been changed too, swapped for loose orange robes. A groan barely passes his cracked lips before a bowl is being pressed to his mouth. Water slips down his throat, cooling his insides like a balm.

“Welcome to the Western Air Temple,” says an unseen voice. “We’ve been waiting a long time to see another Avatar within our walls.” When Nathaniel cracks his eyes open, he sees a woman with short stature and long, white hair. A blue arrow tattoo tracks down her forehead, and there’s a jarring familiarity to her serene smile. “My name is Stephanie. You don’t know me, but I believe you’ve met my daughter.”

“Renee.” The name is a knifepoint of pain in his chest as he remembers the last time he saw her, bruised and bloody, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the other Foxes.

“She said in her letters that there was something odd about your chi, but I don’t think she ever imagined that it would be this.”

Nathaniel winces. Renee had broached the topic of Nathaniel’s _interesting spiritual energy_ with him, prompting him to spend several months frantically avoiding her, convinced she could detect the bending abilities simmering beneath his skin.

Detecting his discomfort, Stephanie switches topic. “If you don’t mind my asking, is it Nathaniel, now, or Neil?”

Before he can answer, a door blows open, admitting with it a gust of air. Nathaniel can hear the wind whistling through the buildings outside, adding to the strange pressure that makes him feel as though his ears need to pop.

“My nephew, the Avatar!” There’s a deep gash in Stuart’s cheek and he has missed a few smudges of warpaint in his haste to clean up, but it does nothing to deter his jubilance as he watches Nathaniel push himself upright. Renee’s mother rolls her eyes and waves to another figure he hadn’t noticed, a girl with long, auburn hair who stands beside her with a bowl of water. Nathaniel realises with a jolt that he recognises her too, one of the many refugees that passed through the Foxhole from time to time. Katelyn spent several days nervously smiling at Aaron from the other side of the firepit until Andrew sent her on her way in his usual blunt style. The brothers had yet to recover from the fallout of Aaron’s anger. If Nathaniel suspected that the pair still wrote to each other in coded notes carried by messenger hawk, he did not mention it to Andrew.

The two Air Nomads leave as Stuart carefully lowers himself onto the side of Nathaniel’s bed. “You’ve a few battle scars there.”

Nathaniel raises a bandaged hand to his cheek, finding, unsurprisingly, _more_ bandages. “How does it look?”

“Like someone dropped their steak in a bonfire and dragged it through a hedge backwards. Sorry, kid.”

Nathaniel rolls his eyes. “Glad to see you’re still an asshole.”

“The feeling’s mutual.” They fall into comfortable silence, watching the windchimes dance.

“You’re with the Air Nomads now?”

Stuart makes a vague waggling gesture with his hand. “Not as such. They’re not a fan of the Southern militia, or any militant organisations, for that matter. They agreed to shelter us when we told them we had the Avatar, bless the spiritual buggers. I wanted to get you straight back to Harbor City, but they reckon the voyage would have done you in.”

Nathaniel winces. He may have given up his privacy when he surrendered himself to Riko, but he still isn’t used to his long-held secret being freely shared with the world. He takes a moment to savour the image of Riko’s face when he finds out Nathaniel escaped. He is distracted enough by the thought that it takes a moment for the rest of Stuart’s words to sink in. “You want to take me to the Southern Water Tribe?”

“Nathaniel, I’m not sure you understand the shitstorm that is about to rain down on us. You’re the most powerful being on the planet, and we just snatched you from under the Fire Lord’s nose. There’s going to be hell to pay, and we will only stand a chance of protecting you from our base of operations. There’s nowhere else to go.”

Nathaniel braces himself against the pillows, mind ticking. “Why did you attack the Fire Nation in the first place if you knew the danger it would pose? You didn’t know the Avatar was me. Why take the risk? What did you hope to gain?”

Stuart bites his lip, clearly unhappy with the direction the conversation is taking. “Nathaniel. You have power beyond comprehension, whether you know how to use it yet or not. When word got out that the Fire Nation had the Avatar, we couldn’t risk them finding a way of harnessing that power for themselves. The rest of the world wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Or you wanted that power for yourself.”

“Nathaniel,” Stuart says, voice low.

“I’m right, aren’t I? Look, I appreciate the help, but I’m not interested in becoming anyone’s weapon. That isn’t what the Avatar is for.”

“Nathaniel,” Stuart says again, voice wavering as he struggles to keep his temper. “You’re so young, you haven’t been fighting this war as long as we have. The Fire Nation-”

“-will fall. I’m certain. But I’m going to take them down my own way. With the Foxes.” Nathaniel leans forwards despite the pain. His fingers twitch with a familiar heat. “Take me back to them, Stuart.”

Stuart blinks. “Your wild band of rebels. Are you insane?”

“Maybe.”

Stuart makes a cut-off sound of frustration. “Why on earth would they take you back, Nathaniel? Your presence would place a target the size of a continent on their backs. You’ve seen what the Fire Nation is capable of, what it does to its prisoners. Is that what you want for them?”

Nathaniel’s gaze is unwavering, his heart set in stone. “Take me back to them. Let them decide for themselves whether I should stay. If they don’t want me…” Nathaniel can’t find an end to the sentence, can’t conceive a future without the Foxes. “If they don’t want me then we’ll take matters from there.”

Stuart stares at Nathaniel, the pair of them locked in a silent battle of wills. Stuart is the first to blink. “Too much of your bloody mother in you.”

Nathaniel smiles wolfishly. “Thank you.”

They can’t depart immediately, Stuart insisting that Nathaniel needs to learn to walk again before he can run into the Foxes’ arms. Nathaniel focuses all of his energy into staggering from one end of his room to the next despite Katelyn’s pleas that he rest. He distracts her by telling her about Aaron’s progress as a healer, which she listens to with poorly concealed delight.

Eventually, she agrees that Nathaniel has recovered enough to wander the temple freely. The first time he steps beyond the walls of his quarters to take in his surroundings, he nearly faints. Pictures don’t do the Western Air Temple justice; the buildings hang upside-down from the craggy outcrop, pointing towards the endless crevasse below. Distant mountain ranges are blanketed in clouds and flying bison circle the ice-capped peaks. All Nathaniel can think about is how much Andrew would hate the dizzying heights.

The nomads of the temple are barely a skeleton crew; after the Fire Nation’s vicious attacks against their citadels, the few survivors scattered themselves throughout the kingdoms. Dispersed in pockets across the globe, the spirit of the Air Nomads is far harder to kill. Those who remain in the Western Temple live on tenterhooks, ready to take flight at the first sign of another attack. Their anxiety doesn’t stop them from approaching Nathaniel whenever he leaves his room, bombarding him with a reverent attention that makes his skin crawl. Still, any stand against the Fire Nation will require the allegiance of every element, and so he does his best to forge what connections he can before it is time to move on. It isn’t challenging to win the nomads over; his very presence seems to light a spark of hope in their eyes. For the first time in his life, Nathaniel is imaging a future for himself, and the effect is contagious.

As soon as Nathaniel can make it from one end of the dilapidated air-bison obstacle course to the other without throwing up or falling over, Stuart orders the preparation of a stolen Fire Nation airship – red emblem painted over for obvious reasons – and they set sail the next day.

“When the time comes, I’m sure my daughter will be an excellent teacher,” Stephanie says as she pulls Nathaniel into a tight embrace. “But if you want a spare set of eyes guiding your path, you’ll find plenty airbenders here ready and willing to lend a hand. And bring Renee with you – it’s about time she received her tattoos.”

Nathaniel returns the embrace as much as he is able, having not quite regained full movement in his arms. “I’ll remember.”

Katelyn, blushing, slips a note into Nathaniel’s pocket with Aaron’s name on it. Nathaniel tolerates her embrace, but privately misses the Foxes’ hands-off approach to affection. Stuart shares his disdain for the hugging; he raps the side of the ship with an impatient “ _Come on!_ ” and throws it into gear as soon as Nathaniel steps on board.

Their journey is short with the wind on their side. The sight of the battered Foxhole on the horizon is enough to unravel Nathaniel, and he grips the side of the vessel so tightly that he feels healing cuts tear themselves back open. He had to take his bandages off to let them air, and without a healer on hand to replace them, he is forced to leave his injuries exposed as they make their final approach. Stuart is right; the scars aren’t pretty. The raw, red burns winding across his chest and arms should fade to dull brown in time while he will be left with the criss-crossing slashes for the rest of his life. Nathaniel can’t bring himself to care about the marks, but the Foxes’ reactions worry him. He has likely caused them enough pain as it is.

The Foxhole is still dusted in a dark coating of ash, but the broken walls and defences have been hurriedly rebuilt with the assistance of earthbending. Nathaniel leans forward to inspect the repairs until Stuart grabs his shirt to yank him back from the edge. A part of Nathaniel imagines he can tell whose hands were responsible for the constructions by sight alone.

Since Nathaniel escaped his father, the uncertainty of Andrew’s fate has become a physical ache pressing down on his chest. When he believed that he would end his days in a grim, grey cell regardless, knowing that he would never be certain of Andrew’s fate made the gnawing doubt easier to block out. Now, with his family within his grasp, the ache is so painful that Nathaniel can barely breathe for it. He can’t imagine having survived all that he has, fought and screamed and burned and killed to be standing where he is now, only to find that Andrew had not been so lucky.

Nathaniel can soon pick out ant-sized figures rushing to battle stations as the airship makes its descent. “You told them we were coming, right?”

“Couldn’t risk the message being intercepted.” Stuart waves jovially at the assembling figures. “Bringing you here is stupidity enough. I’m not eager to advertise your location to boot. Should be a nice surprise for them, no?”

Nathaniel groans in response.

He’s first off the airship, partly out of eagerness but also in the hope of preventing all-out war. He staggers forwards, arms raised in surrender, and is welcomed by a sharp shout of recognition.

“ _Neil?!”_

Within moments, he is surrounded by the Foxes, his Foxes, their voices a discordant mess of delight and alarm and joy and panic. The Foxes’ hands-off approach to affection is a dim and distant memory; Dan is the first to tear up, cupping Nathaniel’s face like she’s seeing it for the first time, unintelligible with joy. Matt goes to throw his arms around him, stopping short when he sees the scarring up and down Nathaniel’s arms. His expression crumples momentarily before he settles for ruffling Nathaniel’s hair instead. Nicky is not so careful, smacking Nathaniel’s back and hollering at the top of his lungs while Renee settles a calming hand on his arm. Allison slings and arm around his neck and squeezes while Kevin, who Nathaniel expected to lecture him for his recklessness, swears wetly before pulling Nathaniel roughly into his arms. It is the weirdest hug of Nathaniel’s life, but he appreciates it more than all the previous ones combined. He’s overwhelmed from the rush of faces and noise, but still his eyes skim from Fox to Fox as he burns with a silent question.

Aaron is the only Fox who still appears to be in his right mind, so Nathaniel addresses him, hoping that the cracking of his voice won’t betray the desperation pulling his heart through the floor. “Andrew.”

Before anyone can answer, a rumble shakes the earth so brutally that black cracks zigzag through the soil at their feet. Nathaniel is the only one who manages to stay on his feet. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end as he feels the tremble of approaching footsteps, the frantic, furious beat of a familiar heart.

“I gave you your back so that you could stand on your own,” says a low voice behind him. “Not so that you could hand yourself over to the first psychopath to pass through town.”

Nathaniel turns, and the relief of the sight of the man before him sends him to his knees. Andrew falls with him, a hand bunched in Nathaniel’s hair so he can inspect the damage. He is the silent eye to the storm of the Foxes, and Nathaniel holds on like his life depends on it. Nathaniel accepts Andrew’s scrutiny as it gives him the chance to study Andrew in return. His upper arms are veined with red scorch marks shaped like lightning bolts, and a dark patch of bruising flows across his temple and up into his hairline. Nathaniel shifts a few strands of hair out of the way to better inspect the damage, putting his arm in Andrew’s eyeline. Andrew’s free hand catches Nathaniel’s wrist and slides upwards, running calloused fingers across his charred skin.

“I’m not sorry,” Nathaniel says. “I would do it all over again if I had to. I’m not losing you.” The earth shifts and cracks dangerously, but Nathaniel keeps his eyes fixed on Andrew. “Andrew, they want to take me away. I’m a danger to the Foxes, and Stuart thinks that I can be of use to the Water Tribe.” Nathaniel closes his eyes, feeling his soul tremble and crack like the ground around them. “If you tell me to leave, I’ll go.”

“What?” Dan says suddenly. “Take you away?” The Foxes, quietened by Andrew’s arrival, are back on their feet in an instant, levelling weapons at the waiting airship. Stuart leans against the side, arms folded and evidently unimpressed.

“Danger?” Matt snorts. “We’re rebels. It’s kind of a package deal.”

“Can’t be worse than the trouble Kevin brought us,” says Allison dryly. “Kevin says your dad is handy with a cleaver. So what? Mine is one of the most powerful entrepreneurs on the continent. We’re used to having targets on our backs.”

Nathaniel freezes, turning back to Andrew. “You didn’t tell them.”

Andrew sends him a flat look. “Of course I didn’t.”

Of course. Andrew promised to keep all the secrets Nathaniel handed him, of course he wouldn’t break that promise, not even if it meant the end of the world. Nathaniel’s relief is short-lived. He can’t lie to the Foxes any longer, not if he expects them to live with the risk he poses. The words twist around his insides for a moment, so small yet so earth-shattering, before he gives up on them entirely.

“Can you help me up?”

Andrew nods, steady as rock as he helps Nathaniel haul himself to his feet. He pauses to study the black cracks Andrew tore through the earth, lets his eyes slip closed as he follows the line of the scars deeper and deeper. He squares his stance, and with Andrew’s hand still on his shoulder, he pulls the earth back together.

When he opens his eyes, he is met with a range of expressions from horror to awe to unrestrained delight. Kevin makes a strangled sound, and it’s only Matt’s intervention which keeps him from collapsing on the spot. Renee smiles with quiet satisfaction. Aaron starts to shake his head.

“It’s a joke, right? He’s fucking with us. He isn’t the Avatar, he’s an idiot.”

“The two are not mutually exclusive,” Andrew notes.

“You!” Dan splutters, jabbing a finger in Andrew’s direction. “You knew?!”

Andrew shrugs again. Kevin reaches out for Nathaniel’s face as though expecting him to dissolve under his touch.

“I taught the Avatar to firebend,” he says faintly. “I called the Avatar an idiot. The _Avatar_.” Andrew swats his hand away.

“I offered Riko the Avatar in exchange for your lives. Now that I’ve escaped, it’s only a matter of time before he comes for you, and it won’t take long for the Moriyamas to trace me here. If I stay, it won’t be a few of Riko’s ships you’ll be dealing with. It’ll be the full force of the Fire Nation. I can’t ask that of you.”

“But you’re asking anyway,” Aaron says. Despite the guilt twisting through him, Nathaniel nods.

“Neil was never a real person.” He looks from person to person as Andrew’s grip on his shoulder tightens. “But I want him to be. I want to be Neil for as long as I can.”

Wymack clears his throat. He and Abby left the Foxes to their reunion in silence until this point, but his interjection garners all of their attention at once. “Alright, this is a democracy, so let’s act like it. All in favour of keeping Neil?”

Every hand shoots up. Their instant and unquestioning support burns Nathaniel up from the inside out. Wymack claps his hands together with finality. “Looks like we’re stuck with you, kid.”

“Now hold on a minute!”

Nathaniel isn’t sure when Stuart left the confines of the airship, but Andrew shoulders himself between them before he can come any closer. The rest of the Foxes similarly move into position, Allison going as far as to unsheathe her blade. Stuart looks between them, at a loss. “You can’t be serious.”

Matt pops his water carrier open. “Does this look like a joke?”

“Look, this is all lovely and cosy, but it won’t be so cosy when the Fire Nation has torn your little campsite to the ground. None of you have _any idea_ what Nathaniel is capable of-!”

“Do you?” Nathaniel asks quietly. The wind picks up for a moment, hissing through the freshly sealed cracks at their feet.

“Nathaniel,” Stuart says, dropping his voice. “This isn’t a game. This is war. You want to play the hero? Fine. Bring the world together, unite us against our common enemy, whatever. But you won’t win with your little band of runaways.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Nathaniel says. “That’s exactly how we’re going to win.”

“And,” Nicky adds, “his name is Neil. Get used to it.”

Nathaniel – Neil – reaches for Andrew’s hand, still tangled in his collar, and places his own over it. “Goodbye, Stuart. I’ll be in touch.”

A vein pulses dangerously in Stuart’s neck, but he isn’t stupid enough to press any further. “You better be, you little shit.”

Neil smiles. It’s his mother’s smile.

He waves his uncle off, not unkindly, while the Foxes whoop and cheer at his back.

His Foxes.

Abby drags Neil to the healing station as soon as she is physically able, and Andrew follows, refusing to let Neil out of his sight as she works. Abby pulls water into the air in careful, rhythmic movements and smooths it across Neil’s arms and chest, imbuing his limbs with healing energy. Neil’s breath stutters in his chest as, for a moment, Abby’s cooling hands turn into Lola’s burning touch. Andrew clamps his hand around the back of Neil’s neck, and he is himself once again. The scars turn dull and scab over, expert hands soothing what the airbenders could not.

Despite Abby’s insistence that Neil rest, he and Andrew slip away at the first opportunity. They head down to the cove where the Fire Nation’s bombardments are etched into the cliff face in deep craters. Andrew leads Neil along the soft sands of the shore until they come upon a cavern blown open by fallen rock. The ocean laps at the entrance, and inside they find the warm waters of underground rivers tumbling down in a misty waterfall that sparkles in refracted light. They kiss in the humid steam until their skin is slick and sticky with it.

Abby let Neil keep his clothes on as she healed him, smoothing the water across his body without seeing the devastation hidden beneath. When Andrew slowly pulls Neil’s shirt over his head, he is seeing the full extent of Neil’s injuries for the first time. His expression doesn’t change as he throws Neil’s shirt aside. Neil makes an irritated noise, which Andrew ignores. His gaze hasn’t moved from Neil’s body.

For the first time since Neil got them, there isn’t a trace of pain in his mishmash of his cuts and burns. He keeps his breathing steady as Andrew studies him, trying to prove that the damage is not as bad as it looks.

“You can touch them.” Neil catches Andrew’s hand and directs it to his chest. Andrew’s palm twitches as it runs across the thick cuts looping across Neil’s abdomen.

A hiss of air escapes Andrew’s chest. “Riko?”

“These ones.” Neil leads Andrew’s fingers to the scars curling across his upper body. Andrew’s forefinger dips into his clavicle as he follows a winding cut up his jugular.

“The rest?”

Neil drags Andrew’s hand across the darkening burns that run down his stomach. Lola’s name sticks in his throat, but as soon as it passes his lips it dissolves harmlessly in the hiss of the waterfall. He presses Andrew’s palm over the definitive handprint-shaped burns, erasing the sensation of one set of hands with another. Andrew frowns, pressing down on the wound for a beat with a calculating gaze, but Neil’s pained hiss sends his hands snapping back to his sides.

“You have to tell me to stop,” Andrew says with a voice like thunder. “You have to tell me when it hurts. I won’t be like them. I won’t let you let me be.”

Neil reaches out, letting their fingers tangle and intertwine. “But I want you to touch me.” He raises Andrew’s knuckles to his lips and presses a kiss into the split and calloused skin of his knuckles. “You’re not like them. You burn me in a good way.”

Andrew’s expression says he isn’t sure whether to gut Neil or kiss him senseless. Neil tugs Andrew in against him in the hope of swaying him towards the latter, and Andrew obliges.

With Neil’s permission, Andrew strips Neil of the rest of his clothes. He thumbs across the burns on Neil’s thighs, but before his expression can blacken past the point of return, Neil nudges his chin, distracting him with a trail of kisses the lead from the dip of Andrew’s neck, up past his pulse point, across his jawline and finally, finally to his mouth.

Andrew’s lips taste like sea salt. The contact unlocks something in Neil’s chest that he hadn’t known was there. He groans into Andrew’s mouth as the last tendrils of loss and fear unravel, leaving Neil able to breathe once more. Before, Andrew wasn’t rough with Neil, but he was never exactly soft either. If Neil had to put it into words, he would have described Andrew as efficient, bordering on clinical. There was always a distance, a tension, not born of anything between them but of the obstacles of Andrew’s own head. Neil never complained, never judged, never asked for more than Andrew was willing to give, nor did he want it. Neil had his own reasons for holding back, namely the certainty that anything Andrew gave him would, sooner or later, be torn from him.

Neil doesn’t know what has prompted the change in Andrew as he cups Neil’s face in a touch that makes Neil feel like glass under his hands. His injuries, the shock of Neil’s disappearance and subsequent return, or the overcoming of some unknown obstacle in Andrew’s recovery unrelated to Neil’s presence; either way, Andrew holds Neil as though he expects him to evaporate like smoke.

Andrew nudges him under the waterfall, shaking his head at the noise Neil makes as the warm water pounds the tension from his shoulders. Neil shakes his head to flip his wet bangs from his eyes, but is too late to stop the water trickling down his forehead. Andrew smooths his hand through Neil’s hair, pushing his fringe back and thumbing away a smear of dirt with his other hand. The water tracks down Andrew’s arms and soaks into his clothes. After a moment’s consideration, Andrew pulls them off and joins Neil under the spray.

The scars left from Andrew’s confrontation with Riko wind deep and dark across his upper body, and Neil studies the jagged marks of lightningbending with his hands fisted at his sides. Fury rises hot and thick in his throat, pulling Neil’s mind somewhere distant and unpleasant, but Andrew returns him to the present with the hook of his hand around Neil’s neck.

Their next kiss is as wet as it is warm, filling Neil from head to toe as their bodies intertwine. He chases a droplet of water down Andrew’s chest with a slow line of kisses that has Andrew twitching against him. His hands bunch in Neil’s hair, tugging lightly, and Neil smiles into his skin. As Andrew’s hands start to work their way downwards, Neil’s breath starts coming in short, staccato bursts, even more so when Andrew drops to his knees and presses a kiss to his hipbone.

“Andrew,” Neil says without any thought attached to the word.

“Neil,” Andrew replies. “Yes or no?”

“ _Yes_.”

Andrew takes him into his mouth without hesitation, and Neil’s world falls apart and comes together and finally, finally, he lands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys,,,,,,, guys,...,,, they're in love  
> the waterfall scene did not exist in the first draft, i'm just very weak


	8. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Now that I’m officially the saviour of the world, are you going to stop calling me an idiot?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: injuries, blood, violence, death, mentions of childhood abuse, physical displays of affection

They come together at the campfire as the sun sets, where Neil answers the Foxes’ remaining questions about his childhood and the Fire Nation. They stack the bonfire high to carry them through the night, watching as sparks flitter upwards to join seamlessly with the stars. Instead of separating to return to their own quarters, they fall asleep together in the orange glow of home.

“I’m sorry,” says Kevin. Everyone else save Andrew is asleep, bodies curled inwards towards the heart of the hearth. “I spent so long looking for you. I thought I could help you, that with the Avatar’s abilities we could… I don’t know. I spent my life waiting for the Avatar to turn up and fix everything when I should have been working to bring the world together myself.”

Neil stares. “Kevin. Look around you.” He gestures to the sleeping Foxes, orange and red and blue and green. “You brought the world together and you didn’t even need me to do it.”

“A dozen runaways are hardly the world.”

“They could be. I meant what I said. The revolution begins with them.”

“With us,” Kevin corrects.

“With us,” Neil agrees. Then, after a pause, “Now that I’m officially the saviour of the world, are you going to stop calling me an idiot?”

"Save the world and I'll consider it."

Neil pops him in the back of the head, and Kevin pops him back, and finally Andrew stirs enough to tell them to quit fucking around and go to sleep, and they do.

*

Riko comes for them. Neil knew he would.

He attacks by night, airships and steamships and mounted soldiers, cornering the camp from land, sea and air.

It’s only when he is standing in the rubble of the abandoned camp that Riko discovers that the Foxes are long gone.

*

They start with the Southern Air Temple, where they are met with a dozen aging monks who watch their approach with dull eyes, already resigned to the inevitability of an attack. Their resignation turns to surprise as they are met instead with Kevin, charming, charismatic, full of life and hope and assurance. At his side, Renee, famous defender of the Nomads, and between them they extract promises: letters written to the cousins and nieces and nephews scattered across the continent. The Air Nomads have never been a warlike people and have no weapons to dust off. They won’t commit to an outright fight, but they will take a stand against the Fire Nation in their own quiet way. Their letters fly in the claws of carrier hawks from nation to nation, and the letters are read and read again, passed from hand to hand through villages and townships, discussed quietly in the taverns away from the ears of vigilant militia.

They head north through the Earth Kingdom, and all the while Matt sends messages back and forth to his mother in the Southern Water Tribe. Randy Boyd is a force to be reckoned with, and she sends regular reports on her progress. Every week she stands before the council of elders and petitions them to begin preparations, and every week the crowd at her back grows a little larger. News of the Foxes’ arrival starts to get ahead of them, and villages empty into the streets to watch the Foxes pass through. At first, they come to see the Avatar, myth made flesh, but soon the streets echo with the names of every Fox as children chasing them through village squares with blue arrows painted on their foreheads and fox masks carved from orange wood. In the heart of Ba Sing Se, Stuart calls on old contacts in the Dai Li, manoeuvring the pieces on his chessboard of politics that will corner the Earth King into powerful alliances with the Southern militia. Stuart discusses his progress with Neil in the palace halls while Nicky is reunited with Eric in the city’s outermost ring. The Klose family hosts the Foxes, welcoming them with thick broth and tales of the Foxes’ growing notoriety within the city walls.

The Northern Water Tribe is expecting their arrival. Negotiations are terse, but Abby plays peacekeeper, saving Nicky from the scrutiny of his former tribe. A bastion of waterbending fortitude in their icy solitude, they have the least to fear from the Fire Nation. They eye the Foxes passing through frozen promenades, unused to the sight of war wounds and battle-dented armour. Andrew never strays far from Neil’s side as they pass through his former home, glaring at the sculpted ice underfoot as though he can melt through it with the heat of his gaze. Neil isn’t sure if it’s the absence of his element or the memories of his time in the Northern Tribe that places heavy tension on Andrew’s shoulders, but Neil is eager to move on regardless.

They begin the journey southwards once more. At one point, Allison disappears for a few days, and when she returns her clothes are weighed down with the smoky smell of Fire Nation territory.

“Talking to some old friends,” she says, and refuses to elaborate.

For the first time in centuries, the roar and snap of dragons echoes through the world’s valleys.

Across the world, people of every nation hear the call.

*

The Foxes celebrate the fall of the Moriyamas the same way they celebrate everything: with copious amounts of alcohol.

Kengo’s passing couldn’t have come at a better time; in the aftermath of his death, the shifting of power and allegiances left the Fire Nation in enough disarray that the sudden and unexpected alliance of every other nation was enough to destabilize the Moriyama’s hold entirely. Unable to face the combined forces of foreign enemies while quelling rebellious elements on home soil, the newly-crowned Fire Lord Ichirou agreed to withdraw all troops from the other kingdoms and return conquered territories, on the condition that he be allowed to keep his throne.

There are plenty who object to Ichirou’s continued rule, Neil among them, but as Kevin points out, anti-Moriyama sentiment had been boiling for years beneath Kengo’s oppressive rule. It would be a miracle if Ichirou could hold the throne for more than another year or so. If he was wise, he would go peacefully, installing a democratic system of election in his wake. If not, disgruntled citizens would likely take matters into their own hands, and that scenario would be less likely to end in Ichirou’s peaceful retirement.

The world is tilting on the edge of a precipice between one era and the next. The news will race ahead of the reality, and in the coming weeks and months Fire Nation troops will pack up and retreat westwards. From the other direction will come a flood of prisoners and hostages released from Fire Nation prison camps, tracing their way home.

Neil never spent time envisaging the end of the war, not before he returned to the Foxes. The end is strangely bloodless, peaceful, even. Neil should be glad for it, but instead it leaves him on edge, a knot of unresolved tension twisted up in his chest. He can tell by Andrew’s steady gaze, missed by the revelling Foxes but not by Neil, that he can detect Neil’s lingering panic.

Andrew moves at the same moment Neil does. They slip away from the celebrations together, shoulders brushing as they snake through the labyrinth of corridors in search of open air.

The Foxes were sheltering in the abandoned Eastern Air Temple when the news of the armistice came through. Soon they will weave their way back into the Earth Kingdom, searching for a new place to set up camp. The war may be over, but their work never will be. Keeping the world in balance, Kevin says, is not a one-man job, or it shouldn’t be. Neil may be the only Avatar, but that doesn’t mean he has to work alone.

Neil hadn’t expected the Foxes to agree as readily as they did. It wasn’t until they were pulling out their maps, squabbling over the strategic and environmental benefits of different regions and kingdoms, that it really clicked, all that they were committing to for his sake. They were going to build a home, and they were going to do it together.

But _home_ is a long voyage and a lot of work away. They agree to spend a few more days in the abandoned temple, taking their first breaths of post-war air in the crisp mountain peaks. There are worse places to celebrate, with each summit topped by ancient, soaring towers and joined by graceful, arching bridges. Andrew, however, won’t be sorry to leave the Air Temple; when Neil stops to peer over the bridge wall to the misty gulf below, Andrew yanks him back from the edge with a hiss.

The night is quiet save for the chatter of winged lemurs darting through the ruins. The air provides a cooling balm for Neil’s skin as he leads Andrew out of the towers towards a small, flat thicket within which a meditation circle is concealed. Neil’s scars have healed for the most part, although the marks left behind will last the rest of Neil’s life. Sometimes he dreams of fire licking across his limbs, leaving raw devastation in its wake, but Andrew is always at Neil’s side when he wakes, pulling him back to the present and extinguishing the flames with steady reassurance.

The wind whistles faintly as it dances between the circle’s stone monoliths. Unkempt grass tickles their ankles while the rising moon hangs over them like a glowing pearl studded in a velvet sky. Andrew glares at it for a moment, features sharpened by the silver light, but is soon distracted by Neil’s fingers tugging through his hair. His pulse picks up in time with Neil’s as their lips meet. Neil can feel the thunder of Andrew’s heartbeat, the hum of his breath as it vibrates on the air, can pick out the shape of the elements that twist and intertwine into the man before him from a mile away.

Neil is better at this now, sensing out the shift and glide of the world around him, layers upon layers of intermingling elements pulsing with a nameless energy, calling to him. He can pick Andrew out anywhere in a crowd, in the pitch-black space between asleep and awake, in hurricane or thunderstorm or earthquake. He knows the weight of Andrew’s body and the pace of his footsteps, he knows the way he holds himself like he can take any hit the world throws at him. He knows the way the air fits in his lungs and the way his blood pumps in his veins and the way fire burns in his chest the same way it does in Neil’s, no matter how carefully hidden. He feels Andrew in constant orbit like they’re celestial bodies caught in each other’s pull.

He isn’t sure if this sense is a side effect of being the Avatar or a side effect of Andrew.

“I don’t know what I expected,” Neil offers by way of explanation for his mood. “War. Loss. Death. Instead, it all just… fell into place on its own.”

“Only you would complain about winning too easily.”

Neil hums, yanking absentmindedly at blades of grass until Andrew nudges his hands away.

“And there I was thinking you were the one person who actually listened to Kevin’s Avatar theory tirades,” Andrew continues. “He’ll be so disappointed.”

Neil raises an eyebrow quizzically.

“The point of the Avatar is to help us avoid the _war_ and the _loss_ and the _death_.” Andrew makes air-quotes in the air as he speaks. “It ‘fell into place’ because you were doing your job.”

“Huh. I never thought about it like that.” Neil tilts his head to one side, lips quirking upwards. “I can’t wait to tell Kevin what an expert he’s made of you.”

“If you dare,” Andrew growls, infusing enough emotion into the three words that he doesn’t need to complete the threat.

“Oh, no,” Neil exclaims sarcastically. “If only there was some way of shutting me up-!”

Andrew clamps a hand over Neil’s mouth. Neil keeps smiling regardless, the curl of his mouth pressing into the heat of Andrew’s skin. Neil can practically taste Andrew’s heartbeat as it falls in time with his own.

Andrew pulls the remaining tension from Neil’s body with persistent, unrelenting hands, pinning him to the moment and holding him there until everything but Andrew’s mouth on Neil’s skin is a dim and distant memory.

Later, lying on their backs and watching as the moon tracks across the sky, Neil says, “Kevin told me I’m ready to move on from firebending.”

Andrew flicks a handful of pebbles into the air and sends them spinning over their heads like planets circling the sun. “Someone met Kevin’s standards. I thought I’d never see the day.”

“His exact words were ‘This is as good as it’s going to get for now’ so I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I stand corrected.” He flicks one of the stones towards Neil, who catches it in his fist.

“Even he has to admit that a working knowledge of all the elements is better than focusing all of my energies on one. He’ll still work me to the bone whenever he gets the chance, he just wants me to start training with the next element too.”

“More work for you.” Andrew pulls the stone from Neil’s hand into his with a tug. “Tragic.” Neil tries to bend the stone back, but it barely twitches in Andrew’s fingers. Andrew snorts and flicks the pebble at Neil’s forehead. “Air comes after fire. Who should I pity more, you or Renee?”

“About that,” Neil says. He isn’t sure what Andrew hears in Neil’s tone, but it’s enough to have him pushing himself upright, fixing Neil with a glare. “I was thinking of going straight to earthbending.”

Andrew’s glare smooths out into something unreadable as he leans over Neil, planting a hand beside his head. “Defy the order of the cycle? Poor Kevin will have an aneurism. Why, pray tell?”

“I’m not just avoiding airbending. The Avatar is supposed to learn their native element first. The Fire Nation expected to find me in the Water Tribe and my mother was from Harbor City. If water was meant to be my native element, then I’ve already messed up the order, so what does it matter?”

Andrew shakes his head. He rests his other hand on Neil’s chest, drumming his fingers over Neil’s heart in time with Neil’s pulse. “Liar. Try again.”

“Fine.” Neil hooks his fingers around Andrew’s wrist but doesn’t push. “I’m not avoiding airbending because of Renee or because of the spiritual element-”

“-despite clearly being wary of both-”

“Yes, _but,_ it’s more than that,” Neil huffs. “Airbending is… it’s an evasive art. It’s all about letting go of earthly concerns, becoming untethered…” Andrew’s eyes are intent as Neil speaks, fingers still against Neil’s chest. “Living on the run, hiding from my problems, never trusting anyone enough to let them in… I’ve spent most of my life untethered. I want to learn to ground myself before I learn to fly.”

Andrew shifts his weight onto his elbow, the line of his body pressing lightly into Neil’s side. “Keep talking.”

“It was…” Neil struggles for the words. He has talked about his time in the Fire Nation in as much detail as he can stand, letting his injuries tell the stories he can’t put words to himself. Andrew, having seen the full extent of Neil’s scars, knows more than most, but there are still black parts of Neil’s mind that he stumbles over from time to time. “It was earthbending that saved me. Back in the Fire Nation.”

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “You can barely bend pebbles.”

He has a point; Neil’s earthbending abilities seem to have left him as quickly as they came. “It was different there. It was…” Neil lets his eyes slip closed, but he can still feel Andrew’s gaze warming him like sunlight. “They were doing everything they could to destroy me. But I thought about the Foxes, and I thought about you, and I remembered watching you earthbend, watching how you tethered yourself, watching you stand strong. You gave me something to hold onto, and I used that strength to survive. It’s how I killed my father. I bent my chains off my wrists and used them to throttle him.”

Naturally, it isn’t the murder part which interests Andrew. “You can metalbend?”

Throughout their travels, they have yet to encounter anyone else who has heard of metalbending, let alone anyone capable of it themselves. Neil thinks Andrew might be the first; Andrew thinks Neil is stupid. “No. Just that one time. I copied what I saw you do. But I meant what I said when I asked you to let me go. I want to learn to hold my ground. I think earthbending will help me do that more than airbending will.”

“Fine. Go convince Dan.”

Neil lets his eyes flutter open. “Dan?”

“You’ll need a teacher, won’t you?”

“I had my sights set on someone else, actually.”

Andrew hums. “Sounds like work.”

“I can pay.”

“With what? You have no more secrets to give.”

Neil shifts, pressing himself more firmly into Andrew’s side. He hooks a hand around Andrew’s wrist, tapping his pulse point lightly in time with his heartbeat.

“I’ll think of something.” Neil can tell by the way Andrew’s eyes flick across the length of his body that his tone has hit the right side of suggestive. Andrew’s hand bunches up in Neil’s shirt as he clenches it into a fist.

“I hate you.”

“I know.” Neil keeps smiling right up until Andrew’s mouth crashes into his, and he loses himself in Andrew once more.

They fall asleep in the meditation circle, lying in the shadows of the standing stones as the stars crawl past. It’s when the moon reaches its peak that Neil startles awake, and in his disorientation, it takes him a moment to trace the source of his disturbance.

Andrew isn’t at his side, but heading towards the treeline. Neil can pick out the vibration of his footsteps through the earth, but there’s something off about the movement, jerky and irregular compared to Andrew’s usual steady pace.

Neil is on his feet in an instant. He weaves through the trees, his tread light despite the knowledge that Andrew can sense his movements. Andrew’s pace doesn’t slow, unresponsive to Neil’s pursuit, which only makes Neil’s worry grow.

The thick branches overhead are enough to block out the silver light of the moon, leaving Neil stumbling over bushes and brambles in the dark. He considers calling out to Andrew, but his voice catches in his throat. He stumbles into a small clearing. The shadows cast by the trees slice silver bars through the grass, which is cut in two by a brook that hisses as it trickles over a steep drop ahead of them. Andrew is standing ankle-deep in the water, still.

Andrew drops to his knees with a splash, and Neil’s world grinds to a halt. Understanding punches a sound from his chest, pained and terrible and furious. Andrew’s head twitches at the sound but doesn’t turn. Can’t turn.

Two figures step into the clearing. Riko’s smile is as sharp as the rest of him, his features gaunt from a long hunt which has not treated him well. The Foxes knew of Riko’s furious pursuit of the Avatar, but they had succeeded in staying one step ahead of him. Until now.

“Nathaniel. It’s been too long.”

His words are lost to the roar of blood in Neil’s ears. He can’t rip his eyes away from Jean, who stands at Riko’s side, his features ashy grey and awash with horror. His hands twist around him in jagged waterbending motions, but it isn’t water Jean is bending. This close, Neil can feel how Andrew’s blood is frozen in his veins, holding him in place despite the ragged gasps escaping him. He can hear it too, the sick gurgle of bloodbending thick in the air. One wrong move, and Jean could halt Andrew’s blood flow entirely. It would be a slow, painful death.

Neil’s voice, when he finds it, cracks like dirt in a drought. “Let go of him.”

Riko clicks his tongue reproachfully. “This is a familiar scene, isn’t it? Your little earthbender trapped and helpless as you beg for his release. Don’t worry; I learn from my mistakes. Do you?”

“What do you want, Riko?” Neil steps forward. His skin hums with unnatural heat. “The war is over. The Moriyamas surrendered. What do you expect to gain from this?”

Riko’s face flashes blank, before scorn takes its place. “You’re lying. My father would never surrender to the likes of _you_.”

Neil takes another step forward. “Kengo is dead, Riko.”

Riko’s eye twitches as the air crackles around him. “Liar!”

“Go home, Riko. There’s nothing left for you here. Go home and forget about your father’s approval. You could have captured a thousand Avatars. It still wouldn’t have made Daddy love you.”

Riko’s mouth stretches into a wide smile that twists and falls in on itself. “Oh, I’m not here to _capture_ you, Nathaniel. I’m here to _kill you_.”

A furious noise escapes Andrew’s chest. The ground trembles, but Andrew can’t bend with his body held in place. Sweat glints on Jean’s forehead; he is one of the most skilled waterbenders Neil has ever encountered, but the bloodbending is taking its toll. Riko may be the true threat of the two, but Jean is the chink in his armour, and every second that Andrew is held down against his will is a knife in Neil’s chest.

Neil leaps forward, but Jean dodges, clearly anticipating the move. Judging by Riko’s delighted snarl, they were waiting for it.

Neil falls to the ground as Jean seizes control of his body. The sensation is horrific, unlike anything Neil has ever known. A thousand invisible hands rip into his body and seize his veins, turning his blood to slush. He gasps, struggling to suck air into tensed lungs as his body writhes beyond his control. He can hear Andrew, distantly, unable to work his mouth into the shape of real words but the fury still clear in his tone.

“As I was saying, Nathaniel,” Riko continues. White sparks fly from his fingers as he draws circles in the air around him. “I learned from my mistakes. I couldn’t force you into the Avatar state because I was going about it all wrong. I was hurting _you_.” He pauses, redirecting his finger to Andrew’s shuddering form, “When I should have been hurting _him_.”

Neil’s breath catches in his throat. “No,” he whispers, the sound strained by the resistance of his body.

“Do you know how much voltage it takes to kill a man?” Riko draws back, lightning flickering along his arms. “The mutt got lucky once. Let’s see how far his luck lasts.”

The forest flashes a brilliant white. Neil screams, and every atom in the universe screams with him. The earth cracks and shudders as wind howls. The river froths wildly as the water rises and swirls around him. When Neil looks down at his hands, they’re glowing.

“Hold him!” Riko barks over the roaring wind. “Hold him down, Jean!”

Jean flinches as he grounds his feet into the trembling earth, but his grip fumbles and loosens under the onslaught of Neil’s meltdown. It doesn’t matter; Neil is lost, Neil is drowning as the world bends and snaps around him, howling with the voices of past and future lives, burning through him with more power than his tiny mortal frame was made to handle.

Neil lets the energy rage through him and out, out, out. Trees burn and crash to the ground, and the river crackles and freezes over, and deeper, far deeper than he thought possible, the planet’s crust shifts and cracks. Neil is consumed, only distantly aware of the moment his feet leave the forest floor. Lightning hits him, or he thinks it does. Neil pulls it in, bends it, twists it, and sends it shooting back. He isn’t sure what he hits, but it falls with a thud. Every atom in existence screams out to him. The universe is calling Neil, and he is lost to the sound.

Then, another voice, a deep, desperate roar tearing through the chaos, sure and strong. “NEIL!”

Neil would recognise it anywhere. He finds the bunch of atoms that make up Andrew, and pulls himself towards him, not caring about what might bend or break in his wake.

Arms pull Neil in, rough and gentle all at once. Hands cup his face, but Neil can barely feel them. “Neil. Neil, come back. Come back!” One of the hands slides to grip his hair, and the other clamps down on his neck. “ _Abram_.”

Neil falls back into himself, and into Andrew’s arms. It takes a few moments for his senses to return to him, but when they do the first thing he sees is the waning moon overhead, blocked in part by Andrew’s profile. Their clothes are wet from the brook flowing around them. When Neil lifts his head, he sees nothing but flattened, smouldering trees in every direction. “Shit,” he says, then, “’Drew.”

Andrew thumbs at Neil’s cheekbone, wiping away a smear of blood. His hands are shaking. “I thought you were gone.”

“I was,” says Neil. “Until I heard you call my name.”

Andrew is hauling Neil to his feet when a pile of debris shifts, and Jean’s head pops into view. Andrew shifts into a ready stance, but Neil is quicker.

“The Fire Nation released all its prisoners. They can’t force you to stay any longer.” Neil places himself between Jean and Andrew. “You once told me that not everyone gets the chance to run. You have that chance now, Jean. You can leave the Ravens. You can go home.”

Jean looks up at Neil like he can’t process what he’s saying. Suddenly, the air is filled with the shouts of familiar voices. A dozen panicked Foxes burst into the clearing, which is several times larger and flatter than it was a few minutes ago.

“We found their airship-!”

“-huge earthquake, what the fuck-!”

“Fucking hell, was now really the time for a landscaping project?”

“-this is the third worst I’ve ever seen Neil look, which is saying something-”

“Guys!” Dan shouts over the panicking Foxes. “Do you need medical attention-?” Her gaze zeros on movement behind them. Neil whips around in time to see Riko pulling himself to his feet. Black scorch marks curl across his face and arms, and his armour is dented, the shirt underneath singed and torn. His manic smile looks as though it belongs to a different face.

“Oh, good,” he says, swaying on his feet. “More company. Jean?”

Jean makes the familiar twisting movement, but it’s only when Riko’s eyes bulge that the new target of his bending becomes clear. Riko falls to his knees, gurgling faintly.

A whimper slips through Jean’s lips, from exertion or from the realisation of what he has done, Neil can’t tell. His lips move silently, as though trying to put the hatred and suffering of a lifetime under Riko’s thumb into words and coming up blank. Eventually, he gives up, eyes flicking to the Foxes. “He’s all yours.”

Andrew thumbs a knife from his cuff and offers it to Neil. Neil takes the slim blade, turning it over in his palm to offer it to Allison. She raises an eyebrow at him.

“For Seth.”

Her eyes harden. She draws her sword from her belt. “I have my own.”

It’s Seth’s sword, which Allison has carried at her hip ever since she recovered it from his body. His initials glint where she engraved them on the hilt. Her gaze flicks to Kevin, a silent question.

Kevin stares at the man he once called brother. His features remain blank: whatever connection they had burned long ago. There is nothing but a disdain left in the downward twitch of Kevin’s mouth. Wymack moves to his side and places a hand on Kevin’s shoulder, giving him the final beat of strength that allows him to nod his consent.

Allison levels the sword at Riko.

“Let him go,” she says, her voice a cold burn. “I want to give him what he denied Seth. A fair fight, and a just death.”

If Jean has reservations, he keeps them to himself. He relinquishes his hold, sinking to his knees with a shaky gasp.

Riko pulls himself slowly upright. He looks past Allison to Neil like she isn’t even there. “Big mistake.” The air spits and crackles as Riko prepares his final strike.

“Yes,” Allison agrees. “It is.”

She points to the water flowing around Riko’s ankles. By the time Riko realises his mistake, it is already too late. Instead of bouncing through him, Riko’s lightning writhes, turning back on his body and exploding through him as it surges on with the course of the water. The force of the bolt is enough to tear the already-crumbling earth at Riko’s feet apart, and the outcrop cracks and falls away. The clump of earth tumbles down the mountain, taking Riko with it.

The Foxes wait in silence until the last crashing echoes have faded from the valley.

“If you ever complain about winning too easily again,” Andrew says, “I will fucking kill you myself.”

The fight catches up to Neil in a dizzying rush, and Andrew is barely in time to catch him as his legs buckle. He sweeps Neil into his arms as though he weighs nothing at all, and together, the Foxes stumble back to the temple, the rising sun painting the world orange in their wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Leigh_0001 who perfectly predicted the events of this update as far back as chapter THREE
> 
> Next chapter will be the epilogue... I'm getting emotional already.
> 
> Pls nobody ever explain to me how lightning actually works


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That cat needs a name."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: scar mention, physical displays of affection, minor injuries
> 
> To everyone who has been so wonderful and supportive here, on twitter, tumblr, etc... THANK YOU SO MUCH! Updating every week and seeing all your reactions has been such a joy. Sorry for getting emo in the chap notes :') Anyway, have an epilogue.
> 
> To the anon who initially requested this au... I can never thank u enough for putting this into my brain <3

Neil isn’t woken by the sunlight which slips over the sheets and paints his hair glowing gold, nor is he woken by one of the neighbourhood’s stray cats leaping through the open window onto his and Andrew’s bed. He is woken, however, when said cat tries to sit on his face and almost suffocates him in his sleep.

“Motherfucker,” Neil says, pulling himself upright. The unnamed cat – because names mean belonging, and neither Neil nor Andrew will admit to being defeated by the affectionate stray quite yet – nuzzles Neil’s face, indifferent to his exasperation. “You’re using me for tuna.”

The cat butts his forehead into Neil’s face, as though telling him to get on with it. Neil sighs, stretching in the tangle of sheets until he feels his back pop. He throws a hand across the bed, seeking Andrew’s warmth, but finds his side of the bed deserted. Neil remembers now, somewhat fuzzily, Andrew slipping into his clothes in the early hours of the morning, stopping to press a kiss to Neil’s forehead as he left. Neil lets the tips of his fingers bump against the wall instead, smooth stone carefully bended into form. Neil’s eyes slip closed again as he feels out the shape and structure of the building, trying to distinguish Andrew’s work from his own without success. They built their house together on the outskirts of town with the expectation of finding an occasional moment of peace further from the bustling centre. Neil can no longer say which parts of their home are his handywork and which are Andrew’s; even when he digs right down to a molecular level, they are irreversibly intertwined.

Today marks the end of their first week in their new house. They’ve been living in the town for months, but the dilapidated downtown buildings the Foxes took shelter in upon their arrival were little more than a set of walls to keep the wind out. This is theirs and theirs alone. This is Home.

The Foxes had originally planned to build another encampment, but it soon became clear that the architecture of war would no longer suit their purposes. The Foxes aren’t soldiers anymore; they want to welcome people in, not block them out. They searched instead for infrastructure, regions accessible by road and sea, leaving a trail for the lost and helpless to follow.

They came upon a town on the west coast, an old port town a dozen families short of deserted. The region exchanged hands between Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation rule a dozen times over the course of the war, most of its buildings frequently repurposed to house troops passing in one direction or another. When soldiers on both sides returned home to their families, they took most of the town’s economy with them. The territory is officially Earth Kingdom now, but there were as many amber eyes as green peering at the Foxes when they first walked through the town gates.

“You can’t be serious, Wymack.” Allison’s arms were folded tight against her chest, lip curling. “I would have preferred camping.”

“Go ahead, wilderness is back that way. Give my regards to the hog-monkeys.” Wymack turns on the scowling Foxes. “Anyone else?”

“No, Sir,” Nicky answered sarcastically. He spotted an elephant-rat darting across their path and squealed. “Okay, maybe, yes. Guys?”

“Here is good,” Neil said. They turned to look at him in surprise. “We can’t make the world a better place by doing things the easy way. We said we wanted to make things better, and we can’t do that if we’re living in a palace. We have to go where people need our help.”

“I’m retiring from world-saving,” Aaron muttered. Someone popped him around the back of the head in response.

“I’m with Neil.” Dan threw an arm around his shoulders. “Damn, someone has been practicing his motivational speeches.”

“Or spending too much time around Kevin’s public persona.” Matt made a fist and pressed it to his chest. “People of the land, unite! Together, we shall take up our sponges and remove the mould which ails our fair city!”

Kevin did not deem the imitation worthy of a response. “Neil says it’s good, and I trust him.”

Kevin’s agreement brought the rest of the Foxes around. The transformation was slow, the locals hesitant to breach the divide with the newcomers. The Foxes worked diligently, however, and soon new buildings sprang up to replace old as the ashy aftertaste of war was washed and scrubbed away. Word spreads of the Foxes’ new headquarters, and soon visitors began to trace the Foxes’ tracks towards the city, seeking help and guidance that Neil was in no way qualified to give. Airbenders who previously wandered adrift through the kingdoms came to settle, emboldened by the Avatar’s presence, Katelyn among them. Citizens of one nation or another who, for whatever reason, no longer felt welcome at home came and were absorbed into the growing population without question. Each new arrival was another hungry mouth to feed, but also a new set of hands ready and willing to build a new life. Blacksmiths and butchers and benders alike brought new skills, new commerce, new business. When spring arrived, the wildflower seeds Renee scattered bloomed in cracks and crevices, painting the city every colour imaginable. Finally, once the town was thriving and the Foxes were settled, Neil and Andrew picked out a plot of land together, and that is where they stay.

And that is where Neil wakes, with a cat crushing his chest and plant pots on the windowsill and the hours-old smell of the coffee he bought from the trading vessels down at the dock. Andrew always makes Neil buy it, as he gets the best prices whether he barters for them or not. Winning the Avatar’s patronage is considered good for business, apparently.

Andrew told Neil what had roused him so early, but the memory is fuzzy, eclipsed by morning kisses. More solid by far are Neil’s memories of the previous night, Andrew’s body on his, pinning him down, holding him together, pulling him apart. People have learned to ignore the scars and burn marks, but the light bruising running the line of Neil’s neck may attract a different kind of attention.

Neil has been antsy for weeks, now, and Andrew can tell; perhaps the previous night was his attempt to ease the restless itch from Neil’s skin. It worked long enough to put Neil into a deep, satisfied stupor, but as the cockerel-chimps beckon in the sunrise in throaty squawks, the restlessness returns. The life of the Avatar is never easy, but between the bursts of frantic world-saving are long, empty stretches that leave Neil at a loose end. What he needs is a _challenge_. He doesn’t voice the urge to Andrew, who would most likely direct Neil to his neglected airbending exercises. While Neil has now mastered every element to some degree, airbending, despite Renee’s best efforts, is not his strongest.

Renee - he remembers now that Andrew’s departure had something to do with owing Renee a favour. Curiosity peaked, Neil hauls himself out of bed, wincing when he sees how high the sun is in the sky. Unnamed Cat weaves in and out of Neil’s ankles as he stumbles around his room, pulling on clothes without paying attention to whether they’re his or Andrew’s. A jumble of colours won’t stand out in town anymore, so mixed is the city’s population that few still feel the need to announce their nation of origin in their clothing.

Neil finds the Foxes gathered in the town square, a flat expanse built on the ashes of a former watchtower, remarkable only for its location at the heart of the city. Several members of the town council had suggested a statue of the Avatar in its centre, a proposal which Neil hurriedly shut down. The dusty, cobbled space is usually clear save for a dozen children kicking a ball around and a few food stalls. Today, a wide platform has been raised above the ground level of the square, two feet high and split in half by a dividing line. Andrew, Renne, Matt and Allison stand on one side while Kevin, Dan, Nicky and Aaron take the other, geared up in helmets and light armour. Good-natured insults are being slung back and forth between the opposing sides while Wymack and Abby watch from the side-lines. Wymack is beaming ear-to-ear, while Abby has her hands over her eyes. Several Foxes are boasting minor scrapes and bruises, although seem no less spirited for them.

Aaron is the first to catch sight of Neil. “Thank fucking god. Let him substitute for me.”

“No way!” Allison is quick to object. “Surely having the fucking Avatar on their team is breaking a rule of some kind. Wymack?”

“Can’t say we ever ran into that problem back in the day. Kayleigh wrote a list of rules a mile long, but I don’t remember the Avatar coming up in any of them. The ones I still remember, anyway.” Wymack claps Neil on the shoulder. “Fancy a go, kid?”

“What is this?” Neil watches as Aaron yanks his helmet off, tossing it to Neil despite the complaints of his teammates. He looks to Andrew for answers and is met with the quirk of an eyebrow.

“Just put the helmet on and get up here, we’ll teach you as we go.” Kevin’s cheeks are flushed, his eyes alight with the kind of manic joy that usually only comes after mastering a new firebending move.

“You will not,” Dan objects. “Coach, tell him the rules first.”

“Coach? I’m not your damn coach!”

“Let him on, Coach!” Matt calls from the opposite side. “We believe in you, Neil!”

Dan sticks her tongue out at him, and he responds by blowing exaggerated kisses while Allison fake-retches at his side.

“Game’s simple. Used to play it with Kayleigh and a few of the guys before war got in the way.” Wymack gestures to the platform. “Four players to a team, one for each element. The aim is to knock everyone from the other team off their half of the platform. You can swap any bender for a non-bender player, the advantage being that non-benders don’t have to stick to their side of the court.”

 _This is going to end badly_ , Neil thinks. “I’m in.”

Dan and Nicky whoop as they haul him onto the platform. Kevin immediately drags him to the far end of their side to run through strategies that go straight over Neil’s head.

“Is Neil subbing as a non-bender or an airbender?” Renee calls from the other side of the court, a mischievous grin undercutting her polite tone.

“What’s the difference?” Andrew says. Neil leans around Kevin to glare at him. Andrew’s stance is open, but his relaxed posture strikes Neil as strangely artificial. Neil’s eyes flick over him. Andrew, catching him looking, slowly raises his middle finger. Neil knows he’s being goaded, but the sensation is oddly thrilling when Andrew is the one causing it.

“Airbender,” he answers loudly, delighting in the answering twitch of Andrew’s lips. A crowd has gathered around the platform, whooping as Neil straps on his armour. Even Aaron has stuck around to watch. Katelyn, who was there to welcome Aaron as he hopped down from the platform, wraps her arms around him and rests her chin on his head, cheering his team on for him.

Wymack kicks off the match with a piercing whistle, and within moments Neil is immensely glad for the armour as a block of clay smacks into his chest. A wave of Kevin’s fire slashes past him, disintegrating Matt’s water before it can knock Neil back any further. Neil is grateful for the cover; while the others focus their attacks on whoever is posing the greatest threat in the moment, Andrew bombards Neil relentlessly with rocky projectiles. His stance remains loose, but Neil can see the spark catching in his eyes, and it urges Neil on. Neil spins, throwing a wall of air across the court which sends the opposition skittering back. Only Andrew succeeds in holding his ground.

Allison uses the moment of distraction to charge Neil’s side of the court, barrelling into Nicky as he tries to direct a jet of water into her face. Nicky tumbles backwards, shrieking as his feet stumble on the edge. His arm catches Allison’s as he falls, and both topple off the court with a heavy thud as the growing crowd cheers. Neil’s concern is washed away by a combination of giggling and swearing as their heads pop back into view.

“Tear them apart!” Allison hollers to her team while Nicky sends Neil a thumbs-up. Eric is at Nicky’s side a moment later, sweeping Nicky into his arms, and Nicky promptly loses all interest in how the remaining members of his team are faring.

Kevin curses as Matt manages to dodge a blast of flames in time to smack a wall of water into Kevin’s face. Kevin shakes his dripping fringe from his eyes and readies another attack, but Dan rushes past him, gleefully slamming her boyfriend with a quick succession of attacks that drive him mercilessly towards the edge of the court.

“Babe!” Matt pleads.

“Nice try.” Dan smirks as she blows him over the side. A vendor hollers as Matt crashes into his stand. Matt shakes cabbage leaves from his hair as he pushes himself upright, turning to the crowd and bowing theatrically.

Neil would be revelling in the crowd’s reaction, but all his attention is occupied with Andrew’s focused assault. If anything, it’s probably doing Neil’s team a favour, as Renee is left to fend for herself against Dan and Kevin’s attacks. Neil throws another wall of air, and this time Andrew’s feet slide a fraction back.

Neil doesn’t see the source of the movement that shakes the entire platform, but he does hear three bodies hitting the cobbles below.

Neil blows himself back onto his feet with a wobbly blast of air to see only one other player remaining. From below, Kevin fires off orders which Neil ignores while Dan and Renne pull each other up, giggling.

“Fuck, this is good.” Dan says. “I vote we build it even higher next time. Add a little more drama.”

“I vote against,” says Abby in a pained tone as she checks Dan for bruising.

“We used to play twice as high as this.” Wymack says. “I landed on my head every other match, never did me any harm.”

“Are you sure about that?” Nicky says, which earns him a pop in the head.

The cheers of the crowd peak as Neil turns back to his remaining opponent. Andrew has planted himself on the boundary line, arms crossed, waiting for Neil to make a move.

“Having fun?” Neil says.

Andrew tilts his head to one side. “You call that airbending?”

Neil copies Andrew’s pose. “I’ll show you airbending.”

“STOP FLIRTING WITH HIM AND KICK HIS ASS ALREADY!” Kevin hollers.

For a moment, everything else falls away; Neil’s universe narrows to the court and the man before him. He isn’t Nathaniel, he isn’t the Avatar, he isn’t even Neil; it doesn’t matter what his name is or where he’s from or where he’ll be tomorrow. All that matters is the court and the man before him.

Something in Neil’s chest clicks into place. He is suddenly intimately aware of the shift and pull of the air around him, curling across his skin and making the hair on his arms stand on end. Airbending relies on detachment and freedom, and something about this ridiculous game has loosened the chokehold of Neil’s obligations and stresses like little else can. Neil isn’t afraid of letting go anymore. He knows that no matter how far he drifts, he will always have Andrew to pull him back to the ground.

The wind whips into a blustering frenzy as Neil rises to the challenge before him. The smile that slices Andrew’s lips apart is ice-cold and searing hot at the same time.

They both strike at once. Neil’s wall of air blasts Andrew’s projectile apart, scattering the spectators with a cloud of dust. Andrew is quick to follow up with a second attack, but this time Neil throws himself into the air, neatly flipping out of the rubble’s path. He flicks a tunnel of air in Andrew’s direction that sends him staggering sideways, giving Neil enough time to brace himself for another onslaught. Andrew’s pulse shakes through the ground, racing through Neil’s skin. Andrew is throwing himself into his bending like never before, and it sends a hot thrill through Neil’s gut to know that he is responsible for it.

Andrew throws, Neil evades, and they dance around each other for several minutes, their movements sharp and focused. Finally, one of Andrew’s rocks hits Neil at the same moment that Neil sends a wall of air barrelling towards him. Teetering on the edge, Neil catches Andrew’s eye. Together, they fall.

The crowd goes wild, and disputes over who was the first to land break out immediately. Neil is hauled to his feet by the watching Foxes who shake the dust from his shoulders.

“Too close to say for sure,” Wymack says. “I have to call it a draw.”

“That’s rough, buddy,” Nicky says, clapping Neil on the back.

“Rematch!” Katelyn yells, and the call is picked up and passed through the bystanders until the square shakes with it.

“Same time next week?” Dan asks, and her question is answered with a definitive cheer.

“We should definitely build it higher next time,” Matt says as Neil and Dan smooth the platform back into the ground. “Oh! With a moat!”

“Typical waterbender,” says Aaron. “We can’t build a moat in the middle of the town square.”

“Then we take it out of town,” says Dan, eyes sparkling. “Make it even bigger. Like the arenas they hold the Earthrumble Tournaments in.”

“We could make a real stadium, one we don’t have to dismantle afterwards,” Kevin cuts in, speaking so quickly he borders on unintelligible. “With seating for the audience, and a substitute bench, and-”

Kevin’s words fade as Neil turns his attention to the crowd. The match over, citizens of the city are gathering in groups, red and orange and green and blue mixing and swirling together as they laugh and chatter about the match’s outcome. Humming through the ground and air alike is the unmistakable sensation of a world coming together.

“Your airbending has improved,” Renee says, slipping her arm through Neil’s to watch with him. Her new arrow tattoos catch the light, not yet covered by her hair which is still growing back in the aftermath of receiving them. “I wish I could take responsibility.”

“What do you mean?”

The corner of Renee’s mouth twitches. “Andrew is always good at drawing out the best in you.”

Neil rolls his eyes. “I’m not sure I have a lot of faith in goading as a teaching technique.”

“You can’t argue with results,” Renee says. She leaves Neil with a smile and a wink.

He finds Andrew tolerating a blow-by-blow account of the match from Nicky, who appears to have forgotten that Andrew was present throughout. “Did you do your favour for Renee?” he asks, cutting Nicky off in the middle of re-enacting his own downfall.

“You tell me.”

Neil groans. “She wanted you to trick me into practicing my airbending.”

“You skipped a couple sessions with her.”

“You didn’t even know I’d follow you down here. Or that I’d join in. Or that Aaron would ask to sub out.” Neil pauses, then curses. “Aaron was in on it-?!”

“You’re predictable.”

“You’re an ass.”

Their new home doesn’t have a secluded cliff face nearby like their old one did, but they built their house tall and narrow, with a flat roof accessible by stone steps. The nights are warmer here, and from their roof they can see out to the calm sea. Trading ships and transport vessels slide lazily through the silvery harbour water while fireflies dance in the air.

“Will you play with us again?” Neil asks. Andrew throws a pebble off the roof as far as he can and Neil bends it back into his palm, a cross between a casual game of catch and a battle of bending abilities which has developed between them.

“Will you?”

Neil nods. “Did you see how watching us play brought everyone together? I think it could be a real tool in bringing balance to the world-”

“Bullshit.” Andrew’s fingers slide across Neil’s neck, tapping his pulse point. “You just liked throwing yourself around.”

“What can I say, there was this hot guy on the opposite team-”

“-I’ll tell Matt you said so-”

“-and yes, fine, I had fun. You got me.”

Andrew hums. For a moment they lapse into silence, listening to the murmur of city life around them.

“Did you?” Neil says eventually.

“Did I what?”

“Have fun?” Neil’s question earns him a narrow look. There’s a light patter of footsteps as Unnamed Cat joins them on the roof.

“That cat needs a name,” Andrew says in lieu of answering. He runs a quick hand through her fur as she passes on the way to Neil’s lap.

“Yeah,” says Neil, smiling. Andrew doesn’t need to answer him, and they both know it. The beat of his heart under Neil’s palm says enough. Neil throws the pebble as hard as he can. It flies across the rooftops until Andrew’s bending catches it. It hovers in the air before zipping back to Andrew’s hand. Andrew flicks it in the air once, twice, the closest he comes to gloating. Neil reaches out and catches the pebble mid-air. “One more round, or bed?”

Andrew hooks his fingers in Neil’s collar and pulls him in. They kiss, deep and warm and perfect. “Bed, junkie.”

They make their way inside, the city at their back and the newest member of their family winding through their ankles.

It’s overwhelming, sometimes, the way the world calls to Neil, every atom begging to be held and fixed and pulled back into balance. But with Andrew there to hold him together, Neil knows he will never be lost again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Foxes built their stadium the next day... no prizes for guessing what they named it!
> 
> For anyone interested in bonus I&E content, I have a few odds & ends planned including an Andrew POV from the kidnapping chapters. Not sure when I'll be posting, but [my iron and ember tag](https://darkblueboxs.tumblr.com/tagged/iron-and-ember) will be the best place to find it when I do :)
> 
> and once again, THANK YOU FOR READING!💖
> 
> EDIT: Alartstudies did some [fantastic Avatar!Neil art,](https://darkblueboxs.tumblr.com/post/628176994078785537/i-am-screaming-this-is-fantastic) please check it out!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please remember to drop a comment so I can get that sweet sweet endorphin rush.
> 
> Come say hi [on tumblr](https://darkblueboxs.tumblr.com) and [twitter.](https://twitter.com/darkblueboxs)


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